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Quick note here at the top that the new Seven Brew coffee (where the Arby's in front of Hobby Lobby used to be) is giving away free drinks as part of its Grand Opening tomorrow from 9-4pm and Saturday/Sunday from 10-4pm. Now, I know shilling for drive-thru coffee chains isn't my usual fare, but the real reason I want you to go is so that you can donate the money you would have spent on that coffee (or perhaps several coffees!) to Kirk Care while you're up there.
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I didn't know much about Kirk Care until I joined Kirkwood for Everyone a few years ago and started hearing from other members just how integral an institution it is for the community. Snag a free coffee and help some folks out; that's a great Saturday morning!
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- The biggest news of the week is that the sidewalk bill I've been trying to rally you all against died in last Thursday's council meeting on a 4-3 vote (it needed five 'yays' to pass). I did a full post-vote write-up here, but here are the main takeaways:
- Despite opposing this amendment, it is still not obvious to me that having citizens fund ad hoc sidewalk infill projects is an efficient way of doing things
- If ad-hoc infill isn’t efficient, though, we should exempt both new construction and large additions, not just the latter
- Perhaps we should allow both citizens building new homes and those adding large additions to pay into a sidewalk infill fund rather than constructing the sidewalk themselves. That way, the city could deploy the funds when they are ready to do sidewalk infill along an entire block instead of having a bunch of half-finished sidewalks
- Such a change would also allow us to preserve existing trees populating the right-of-way for a bit longer until the city was ready to build a new sidewalk down the entire block
- No version of this amendment would have had a significant impact on teardowns or housing affordability in Kirkwood. The only way to achieve improved affordability and reduce teardowns is by removing barriers that prevent folks from adding to the supply of housing
- After taking a week off, last week's Webster-Kirkwood Times really brought the heat:
- On pg. 1, I was so happy to see that the supporters of the KVC project turned out in such big numbers to warrant the headline "Many Speak in Favor of New Children's Mental Health Campus" and I can't wait for the day when people turn out to support a new apartment building in the same way. Of course, elected officials should but absolutely no weight on which side's supporters are more willing to waste a night repeating the same two or three points over and over again
- On pg. 4-A, there's a great write-up of the Kirkwood Early Childhood Center. KECC is a part of KSD and offers full and half-day preschool/daycare for kids ages 2-5 for between $15-$20k (depending on age) a year, assuming your child attends every week. That's incredibly expensive, but KECC still has a waiting list. The good news is that KECC recently expanded their North Sappington campus, adding three classrooms and enough space for 52 additional students. Thats fantastic progress, but I really would love to see the district pursue the further expansion of both the number of slots and affordability levels, but I'm going to wait to give it a proper write-up
- On pg. 6-A, John Haprer wrote a Letter to the Editor complaining about development that makes several factual errors. If you don't like living in moderately dense walkable communities, that's fine, (plenty of people don't!) but you can't lie and say that new private investment is somehow going to bankrupt the city. I sent a response letter so hopefully we'll have a rebuttal in the paper sometime in the next couple of weeks.
- Two amazing stories on two amazing KHS alums:
- On 10-A, Nikki Glaser really did do a great job hosting the Golden Globes and it's amazing that everyone from my friends in Brooklyn to the writers of my hometown paper seem to think so. She's got range, baby!
- On 12-A, there's a great profile of Kerrick Jackson, Mizzou Baseball's newest head coach and the SEC's first Black head baseball coach. The SEC is the top conference in college baseball so that's really an incredible feat
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There's so much more in this week's WKT I didn't get to, but we're already running long I'm going to leave it there for now. One more note: newly elected State Representative Mark Boyko is hosting a community listening session at KPAC tonight from 6-8pm. If you can make it, you should tell Mark you want him to work with his colleagues across the aisles to prioritize zoning deregulation legislation at the state level. Other Republican states like Montana have made some incredible progress here and there's no reason why Missouri should be any different. Have a great weekend everyone!
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