Calling today's public infrastructure and utilities committee meeting to order.

Madam Cork, please call roll.

Audible woman boy.

Hi.

Audible clerk cover.

Here.

Vice Chair Swip, sir.

President.

Alderman Devotee.

Audible Woman Cox family.

Chair Swipe.

Chair Browning, I'm sorry.

Present.

We have four present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

With that, uh, we'll move on to approval of the minutes.

I'll accept a motion to approve the minutes from Wednesday, July 8th, 2026.

Some second.

Moved by the Alderman from the 10th, seconded by the all the woman from the first.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Alder Woman Boyd.

Aye.

Audible woman clerk cover.

Aye.

Vice Chair Sweit, sir.

Aye.

Alderman Devotee.

Alder Woman Cox and Tween.

Chair Browning.

All right.

We have four I votes.

Thank you.

With that, the minutes are approved.

We'll move on to the next item in our agenda, which is board bills for review.

We have one board bill for review today, and that is board bill number 62.

And that is my board bill.

So at this time I will hand the chairmanship over to the vice chair, Alder Woman Schweitzer.

Thank you, Chairman Browning.

You are recognized on board bill 62.

Thank you.

So today we have Board Bill 62, which is our annual allocation of the St.

Louis Works Money.

As most of you know, the St.

Louis Works Money is a uh tax that we bring in that gets distributed amongst the alders, and then we can spend it on streets and sidewalks.

Uh this is one of the main funders of programs like the 5050 sidewalk program and others.

Uh and we are eager to be able to spend this money on our streets and sidewalks, which I know we all have a lot of work to do out there.

And so we're trying to get this bill done before we go on break so that that money can get into our accounts so that we can use it.

So we will be asking to suspend the rules on Monday during our special full board meeting to move this to perfection.

And I don't anticipate any issues with that because I think we'd all like to uh have this money available to spend to the benefit of our residents.

Uh so with that um I will um move to uh pass Board Bill 62 uh with a due pass recommendation.

Um before uh um we can have a second and then we'll do discussion and see if there's public testimony on any of that.

Okay, do you want to remove your motion, uh Alderman Browning, just so we can yeah, sorry.

Um happy to remove that motion.

Thank you.

Uh is there any um members of the public here to speak on this bill?

Anyone in the reading room, Madam Clerk?

Um okay.

Um okay, I'll go through the members of the the committee for questions.

Alderwoman Boyd.

No questions.

Alderman Clark Hubbard.

Thank you.

Uh I don't have any questions, and I know Mr.

Chairman might heal me, but I did invite um the streets department here just in case there might be people watching that are not familiar with the 5050 sidewalk program, how we fund it, how we do it, you know, even the work that we're trying to do to restructure that program as well.

So uh Mr.

Chairman, if you will give me a few seconds, uh can we please introduce Mr.

Grid Girdler, who is the new, I'm gonna say it like this.

Many of us will know our new Zach, but he's not a new Zach.

He is over the 5050 uh program.

And I think uh Commissioner Flight might be on his way if anybody had any questions, but I did want him.

I I just got the opportunity to meet him when I went down for a one-on-one at the streets department on Monday.

Thought it would be great for him to come and connect with us here at the PIU committee and then have another opportunity for him to meet with other auditors as we work directly with him on funding our um 5050 sidewalk programs and our boards.

Thank you, Alderman Clark Hubbert.

That's a great idea.

Uh Mr.

Gertler, we'd love to hear uh from you and and if you want to speak on this bill and what your plans are for the 5050 sidewalk program.

We're looking forward to hearing from you.

Well, um, I started uh this is my 30-day anniversary, so I'm still in the kind of the discovery mode, but um I did read through the bill.

Um I think it's it's it's uh it's it's intentions.

I think it's good overall.

Uh it's good.

Um I'm I'm working toward um active active reporting to the wards on uh where um where we are in the entire process.

Uh we do have about 5,000 service requests backlog uh in the uh 5050 program, 4600 at last count.

But we are we are building a plan to bring that around and um hopefully uh come together as one good program.

Uh I don't I don't have any specific ideas for the money at this point, but um I do appreciate the support and in the department Well, thank you for being here.

Um as as we go through questions from Alderman, they may have uh specific questions for you.

So if you don't mind just staying on, I'd I'd appreciate it.

And thank you for inviting uh Mr.

Gurdler, uh Alderman Clark Hubbard.

Um anything further, Alderwoman.

Okay.

Uh Alderman Devotee.

Uh Mr.

Girdler, welcome, uh welcome on board.

Uh talk about going from uh from uh how do they say that heat to frying pan or something like that?

Uh the Alderwoman uh put you right in uh in the heat today.

I know the the status of the 5050 program and and where we are is a hot topic in my ward.

Uh was a big subject of discussion last night.

So again, welcome on board.

Uh Alderman Browning, thank you for taking this up.

I don't have any questions of you.

Uh, but Madam Clerk, I would uh like to be added to a as a co-sponsor of this.

So again, thank you all for uh for your collaborative effort here.

I'm on it.

Thank you, Alderman.

Um uh Chairman Browning or Alderman Bright Browning.

Um in the page, let's see, the fifth page where the chart um goes over all the different totals.

Um I know each ward is supposed to get about 250,000.

Is that in the um asphalt material and supplies category or what category is that 250,000 or 250, yeah, 250,000 coming from that gets divided 14 ways.

Yeah, so it's a little confusing from the bill because it says six million total, but then uh the department takes a little bit off the top for personnel.

Uh there is also about 400,000 more this year than there was last year, and all of that is getting split up between the alders in addition to the the rest of this money.

But I think the the easier way to figure this out would be to uh because I think it's it's kind of split between asphalt and supplies and um and a few other things, but we we should be getting about 240,000 each this year.

Okay.

Um great.

Uh any any further questions from members of the committee I was just share that I did get a message from Commissioner Flake.

I think he was on in the waiting room.

So I wanted you all to know that he wanted to be here as well.

If anybody had any questions for him.

Um again, I didn't even know it was a hot topic for you, Ottoman Devotee.

So great.

Now you can direct connect uh to what's going on in.

Thank you.

I would like to um Madame Clark be added as a co-responde as well.

So now and I do have someone in the on the other side with their hand raised.

Great.

Is that that could possibly be um Commissioner Flake if you don't mind letting him in and I don't believe it's him, it's my name Yasmin.

Okay.

I might be for public comment then.

Okay, she denied the clients to be promoted as a panelist.

Okay.

Uh well, if if uh we're getting to the end of this hearing, if who you're listening and wanted to be let in, make sure your hand is up and that the clerk knows that you want to be let over.

We are getting towards the end of the hearing of this bill, so um do so right away.

Um, Madam Clerk, please interrupt me if anyone raises their hand, all right.

Okay.

Um yeah, I I um you know, always I'm interested in asking questions to Commissioner Flake, and we have these these uh opportunities to have them in front of us to talk about schedules and everything like that.

I know um, you know, we're we uh there's lots of work happening in the streets department to um comply with the the different ordinances we have for for information that comes out about when streets will get paved and and the order and the plan and all of that.

So um I am glad that this is moving because I think we all have projects that we want to keep moving in our in our respective wards.

Um so um I would also like to be added as a co-sponsor, Madam Clerk.

Um thank you.

Um so um I would also like to be added as a co-sponsor Madam Clerk um thank you and uh without any further ado as long as no one has their hand up uh Alderman Browning you're recognized if you have that let me try okay wonderful and Alderman Cox Anthony I see that you've entered our our our room here.

Any questions Alderwoman thank you Alderwoman Schweitzer uh no questions and I apologize for being a few minutes late today I just would like to also echo the Otterwoman's comments and be added as a co-sponsor as well.

Thank you.

I do see um Commissioner Flake has joined um Commissioner Flake thank you for being here we'd love to hear from you on this bill if you have a a few words to say and and any any thoughts about um when um you know paving should be going on in our various wards and anything that you think would be interesting to the committee we'd love to hear from you're muted at the moment yep absolutely and sorry for being a little late I was trying to go to the previous uh zoom link not the updated zoom link okay uh so this is the much anticipated 2026 St.

Louis works bill uh it's very boilerplate compared to previous years uh the four big changes which are the ones that aldermen or alders are always more concerned about uh not sure if you guys have my highlighted budget or not but there is a 510 5645 major projects which is the 5050 sidewalk account there are two highlighted in 511 one is 522000 and 56200 and is uh camera maintenance funds is what those are and then the 514 you have 524503 which is the asphalt material and supplies which is the earmark money for paving uh other than that there are no significant changes but uh so in short though this is a half cent utility tax there's also some other DMV funds and other things in there that are that are set aside for this each and every year uh I don't actually get the dollar amount uh as far as the six million dollars total for this that's provided to me by the comp controller and they are the ones that kind of babysit that fund and let me put my phone on vibrate perfect uh so it is up a little bit I think last year was 5.6 million might have been five four but it was five six last year and a six million dollars this year which equates to two hundred and seventy thousand per ward uh last year I believe that was 230 or 240 um getting 2024 and 2025 confused uh that's kind of the the budget in a in a nutshell uh we are currently on paving uh we started the year off in alderman aldridge's ward with some leftover stuff we had up there uh we are currently in alder woman son yeah's ward uh doing everything that we have there I think we're going to bounce over to Alderman Browning's ward here probably next week because he has a couple priorities that he's concerned about plus they uh have traffic traffic coming measures and scraping that need to get done this year without any any doubt and then we have a a few loose in south and I know Alderman Aldrich has also reached out to do a bunch more paving up in his board uh which is fantastic so the goal is to get all this paving done this year without any questions there should not be a problem with that at all um kind of kicking I guess a little bit towards sidewalks I believe Darren is on here uh Darren Girdler is our new 5050 project program manager and he is uh seems to be very competent in what he does and his resume speaks for that also and I'm I believe it's going to definitely be a success with him taking that over he's pretty new so if you guys ask him any questions be nice to him because uh he he has been here I think four weeks and uh he's just now getting his feet wet put that program there in general it's it's had its ups and downs over the last decade and uh just in conversations that we've had I think it's uh definitely destined to go in the right direction going forward plus it also changes with the DOT coming in here in the next couple years also but we'd like to get it kind of tidied back up so then it'll make that transfer formation to a DOT much easier.

And uh just in conversations that we've had, I think it's uh definitely destined to go in the right direction going forward.

Plus, it also changes with the DOT coming in here in the next couple years, also.

But we'd like to get it kind of tidied back up.

So then it'll make that transfer formation to a DOT much easier.

Uh I think that's realistically all I have.

If you guys have any questions, feel free.

Thank you, Commissioner Flake.

Really appreciate you being here and coming in front of our committee.

Um, if any uh aldermen have any questions for Commissioner Flake, please go ahead and raise your hand.

Okay.

Um I will then move it back to uh Alderman Browning to close.

Thank you.

And uh thank you, um, Mr.

Flake.

Uh and also nice to meet you, Mr.

Gurdwer.

Looking forward to working with you.

Um, and I know that there's there's so much work we can do on things like our sidewalks.

And um you can just count me as one of the people who really really believes in a complete accessible sidewalk system as very, very important to our city.

So um I am excited to get this money allocated as uh Commissioner Flake uh mentioned it is around actually 270,000 per ward, a little bit up from last year.

It's 240 last year, a little higher this year.

So use that money, go out and fix some sidewalks so that your residents can get around.

It's great that we get this, and um, we really look forward to doing this work in our wards because we know our residents really appreciate it.

Um so with that, um, I would uh move that we pass Board Bill 62 uh out of committee with a due pass recommendation.

Been moved from the alderman from the ninth.

Is there a second?

Second, seconded by the alder woman from the 10th, madam clerk, please call the roll.

Auto woman bullying.

Aye.

Auto woman Clark Hubbard.

Aye.

Aye.

Other man devotee.

Aye.

Audible McCock Santwing.

Are you frozen?

Is he frozen?

I think she might be frozen.

Chair Browning.

Aye.

We have five eye votes.

By your vote, you have sustained the motion to the alderman from the ninth, and we have passed Board Bill 62 with a due pass recommendation.

Congratulations, Alderman, and I'll pass it back over to you to share the rest of the meeting.

All right, thank you all.

Uh told you this, I'd try to make this quick so we can all get back to our days.

I really appreciate everyone meeting this week so we can get this done before we head out on legislative break.

Um, as I mentioned, the beginning the meeting, if not everyone was here, we're gonna be asking to suspend the rules on uh Monday to move this to perfection so that we can third read it and fully pass it on Friday of next week, uh, so that it will be available for everybody.

Um, so uh with that, I think the last items on the agenda are uh Madam Cork.

Do we have any written testimony?

Yeah, none.

And uh I don't think there are any committee discussions scheduled.

Does anyone have any announcements?

See none.

Add the SC in the chat.

I'm sorry, Mr.

Chairman, and Madam Clark add DSC in the chat that you said someone was trying to speak.

Can you just ask them to email the chairman or vice chair?

Okay so that we can make sure we uh okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, that's important.

I appreciate that other woman.

Um, with that, uh, let's see.

We've uh any announcements.

Um, all members were present today, so no need to excuse anybody.

So with that, I'll accept a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Thank you.

Previous roll.

Moved by the Alderman from the first, seconded by the Alder one from the 10th.

And a call for previous roll from the Alderman from the first.

Hearing no objections, we are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.