I hope everyone had a blast at Cars & Guitars this past weekend!
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One quick idea sent from a reader to start us off: The City of St. Charles recently entered into a public-private partnership with the YMCA in which the city leased land to the Y for a new branch and in return, the Y provided staffing, programming, and administered the membership system (with discounted rates for St. Charles residents). Concerns that a new public rec center would negatively impact the YMCA have long hindered efforts in Kirkwood, but what if we just worked with the Y directly instead? The city could provide land at the existing rec facility in Kirkwood Park. And in fact, the YMCA seems to be interested; here's a pitch-deck they made suggesting just such an arrangement before KPAC was built. No idea why this proposal fell through, but it's not too late to correct the mistake!
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- The city is in the process of hiring a Fire Marshal. The City should ask for candidates thoughts on single-stair building codes as fire marshals often prove to be sticky-wickets on such reforms despite ample evidence that smaller single-stair buildings are every bit as safe as big bulky double-loaded corridor structures like The James.
- A few interesting items in last week's Webster-Kirkwood Times:
- On pg. 4, a nice overview of the Council's efforts to get MoDOT to lower the speed limit on Manchester from 35 mph to 30 mph as it is in neighboring municipalities. Kirkwood's huge advantage is its nearly complete street grid, which evenly distributes traffic. That
- In the mailbag:
- On pg. 6, while I agree with Brian Skoff in principle —Motika, as the President of the School Board for all of the district, Republican and Democrat alike, should probably keep her thoughts on national politics to herself— the complicating factor here is that President of the School Board is an elected position, and in a deep blue place like Kirkwood, expressing displeasure with the President is good politics. The recourse is at the ballot-box, but I don't expect Kirkwood School District voters to exercise it. Part of the problem is that only the most hardcore partisans know who the candidates for School Board are. Political science tells us mayoral control of schools is a much better system, but obviously R-7 covers more than the City of Kirkwood, so that's not really viable here.
- On pg. 8, I agree with Gary, bring back Downtown Kirkwood's fountains!
- On pg. 11, a nice story (and map) on Great Rivers Greenway's exploration of a cycling bridge connecting Marshall Fields to Unger Park over the Meramec. Again, low priority, but if GRG wants to build us free cycling infrastructure, I'll take it.
- This week's City Council work session agenda reveals that the Council voted to remove Phase 2 of the Grant's Trail Extension from the list of projects to fund with TDD revenue: "It was the consensus of the Council to remove the Grant’s Trail Phase 2 Project and keep the Greenway Project." The "Greenway Project" is the new fangled plan to enhance the park space between the Farmer's Market and the Train Station along the railroad tracks. But walking down Argonne is already a pleasant experience! The Grant's Trail extension would bring new folks and new tax revenue to Downtown Kirkwood, and that additional tax revenue could then be used to fund things like the Greenway Project. We need to convince people that the government can actually complete one big ambitious project before we move on to another one and this is taking way way too long.
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That's all for this week! Station Plaza concert is canceled tonight but we’ve got Tunes at Ten this Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market! Have a great weekend, everyone! KNICKS IN FIVE!
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