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I hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend! Not many meetings this week, but a lot going on nonetheless!
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- I forgot to mention this amongst all the brouhaha, but a proposal for a new business called The Kirkwood Arcade to be located at 118 N. Kirkwood Road went before P&Z last week as well (see here, beginning on pg. 32). The indoor arcade would be located in the same storefront that's in the process of restoring its original glazed facade. Just a great sequence of events here for the nostalgics amongst us!
- A few massive items in last week's Webster-Kirkwood Times:
- On pg. 1, in what is probably the best piece of investigative journalism I've seen in the WKT since I've started doing this, the Times spills all on the financial crisis at Kirkwood Electric. The whole thing is fantastic, and I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here are some scattered thoughts:
- Some of this —like the annual transfers from Kirkwood Electric to the General Fund— is still certainly on the Council, and obviously we're now only hearing the Council's side of the story now, but it certainly seems like I underestimated the extent to which Hawes and Petty were to blame for this thing. At the very least, it seems like poor financial management, and potentially much worse...
- The Mayor wants to investigate the possibility of fraud! And honestly, it seems warranted at this point! I still can't quite tell if these reporting discrepancies were deliberate on the part of Petty —or what he would have had to gain from such deception— or if he was just really bad at this aspect of the job.
- In that vein, I would love to read an interview with Hawes and/or Petty, has the WKT tried to secure one?
- I've never seen a Council Member anonymously quoted in the WKT before, but right there on page 8 is someone described only as "an elected official" describing the utility's budget as a "slush fund"! If it gets electeds to share their authentic thoughts with the public, than I'm all for it, but come on! Say it with your chest!
- Two brief policy angles (there's always an angle!):
- The UFS report the city commissioned last year recommended that the utility implement Power Cost Adjustment (PCA) pricing, but the city has yet to do so. At least part of the issue was caused by the massive spike in energy costs in 2022 and this is policy best practice that would help to guard against it without requiring to the Council to constantly retroactively approve rate increases/decreases. It's very easy to implement and we should do it.
- The link to the page on the website is dead, but to the best of my knowledge, Kirkwood Electric still offers a $300 rebate to residents who install electric vehicle chargers at their homes. That's probably not a very big line item in the utility's budget in the grand scheme of things, but it is 1) Unnecessary- electric vehicles are now a mature industry so there's no need to subsidize it; 2) Poor policy - it indirectly subsidizes car use and ownership over other preferable modes of transportation; and 3) Wasteful - electric vehicles and their accompanying chargers are going to increasingly grow in popularity, especially in light of the higher fuel costs resulting from the war with Iran. Even if this doesn't cost us much today, it will cost us more in the future. Ditch the subsidy: Kirkwood Electric could use the money.
- A couple of additional items from page 4:
- First, another update on the Public Works story. It's unfortunate that we've gotten to this point, but again, I think Gibbons, Lavender, Burkett, and McLean are correct on the merits to approve the project now that we're here. It's the mature decision, even if the slopulism of symbolically voting against it likely has more political upside.
- I'm also very glad to see Webster approve the South Elm mixed-use project. Every day my dream for a bike/busway connecting Downtown Kirkwood to Downtown Webster via Adams/Lockwood grows closer!
- A couple of upcoming open houses on various projects around the City:
- This Saturday, June 27th, from 10:00-11:00 am the City will be hosting an open house at Meacham Park to solicit public feedback on the four proposals it's received for a new playground at the park.
- Next Tuesday, June 30th, the city is holding an open house on the proposed revisions to the stormwater ordinance at City Hall from 4:30-6:30. I really would love people to show up to this one and ask that Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) be exempted from the changes. The city has only approved three of these things so I really think such a move would have a limited impact on stormwater runoff while demonstrating that we're taking affordability seriously as well. Multifamily housing was exempted on these same grounds and it only makes sense that ADUs are included as well.
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That's all for this week! Captain Bulkhead and the Portholes will perform at the Station Plaza tonight from 6:30-9. Have a great weekend, everyone! Go USA!
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