April 2nd, 2024 General Assembly Meeting

BENTON PARK GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING

APRIL 2ND, 2024

Number of attendance:  56

Meeting Called at 7:00pm

Welcome

New Members 

Lucy, Clara, Kyle, on McNair

Guest Speaker

Judge Katherine Fowler

Judge Heather Hays

KF listens to civil and criminal cases, lives in Lafayette.  Loves her job and serving the community.  

HH is her colleague and is an associate circuit judge.  Criminal associate division.  See’s everyone at their bond hearing.  Here to answer questions.  A misconception about judges is that they work very hard to help the community.  They want criminals to become functioning members of society.  Including, drug rehabilitation, and much more.  

Questions:

01.  Very impressed with the jury duty process, and the effectiveness of it.  

They have revamped the process of jury duty so that it is more effective.

02.  How do you think you could do better, if you had a magic wand how you would you imnorove the system.

More money for services.  Police, schools, judge, and they spend so much time on mental health issues, and various services.  They work with a lot of community partners, to help with the conditions of the people that need help.  They do not have enough resources, for housing, and mental health.  

03.  How can we help to make steps in the funding direction?

The best way to (St. Patrick Center, Places for People) help is contacting their partners.  They have representatives that come to court, meet them in jail, and are active with helping them.  Supporting the partners, helps the entire process.  Housing is the worst part.  

04.  Do the community partners know how many people they can accept?

Yes.  

If there are crimes happening, contact the courts in any way you can.  Email them, come to court.  It helps them since they have a small sliver on information when the case is presented.

05.  If there was more services for the homeless would you attract more homeless?

St. Louis county has more services, and that most of them are MO residents or IL.  

06.  Are the unhoused population counted as residents?  

Most of them say they live in the St. Louis area.  We have pre trial services that they meet with before their case.  They do not know if they are counted or not. 

For clarification, when the census is done, they do a tally of homeless shelters, and they do a tally of universities, which is handed in separately.  

07.  Is there a list of community services?

Mission St. Louis, Freedom Community Center, St. Patrick, People in Crisis and more.  

Minutes Approval?

Are there any questions for the last minutes?

Old Business

We need to approve this years budget.  We have been operating a loss for the last 4 years.  This year we have created a sponsorship committee.  We have an event coming up, which will be talked about later.  The summer concerts have been down scaled, for quality and funding purposes.  We are only doing 3 shows this year.  We will work to expand again for next year.  We are losing the Gateway Cup this year, they have decided to expand to different neighborhoods.  There really is no reason why they made the decision to leave.  Possibly lack of community involvement and sponsorship from the local businesses.  So it cost them more to have events here at Benton Park than in other neighborhoods.  

Questions:

How do we determine which acts we put on?

Answer:

We have a relationships with certain bands in which we love to work with.  We would love to include new acts so any suggestions should just be submitted.  

Formal vote to approve the budget.  Are plan is to break even this year.  

Majority in favor.

Police Report

Officer Rosa Rojas.  Crime activity report for the last 28 days, 3/4-3/31.  2 incidents in the neighborhood.  21st a Kia Rio was stolen.  25th of March another Kia was stolen in the 1900 Block of Sidney.  Over 100 calls in the last 28 days.  She has never seen so many people at neighborhood meetings, not has she seen this low of an incident report.  She encourages everyone to keep calling the police, and to continue to be patient with the police.

Alderman Report:  

They are coming close to the end of their legislative session.  The liquor license bill has passed, against her vote.  They are looking at a bill on homelessness.  Easing the requirements for shelters.  There needs to be some protected spaces for the homeless that doesn’t impede on public spaces.  Cara introduced a bill on reckless drivers that would put a boot on your car.  Infractions get tickets, and people aren’t showing up for courts.  They are considering redistribution of funds that would help garbage trucks, and other services.  She is concerned at the new hiring freeze.  The city is already running at 70% fulfillment.  Lastly, they had a meeting last night for some proposed changes on Gravois.  If you would like to see the changes, they are online.  MODOT is in charge of that street, and the funds aren’t there.  The state of MO does not support mental health, and they fund zero homeless services.  She feels that the federal government is failing us.  We are the 44th state when it comes to mental health.  MSD was on the voting ballot today, and 

Questions:

01.  Why did they place a hiring freeze.

That information was not divulged to the aldermen.  She hopes to get to the bottom of this.

02.  Speed humps, what is the timeline?

Speed humps take a long time.  The process changed a year ago, and there are a lot of working parts.  The approved ones are in the system, but in a queue.  

03.  Any idea with the church in Soulard?

The city has fined them, issued warrants, they put white boards on it.  Their boarding up was not enough.  The building committee did the best they could to clean it up.  The owners are MIA and unresponsive.  The city is working on it.  The city has the power to demolish it and invoice the owners.  They have funding that they could renovate the building, but it’s unavailable due to the neighborhood being affluent.  Neighborhoods can file a lawsuit on vacant properties.  If there is a lawyer in BP that would want to do it they could get some help from the (look up).  Legal cost can be recouped for legal cases.  

Announcement 

Lisa Optke

Downhill meetings in all of the neighborhoods.  April 16th at the Serbian Church (Serbian Drive and Geyer).  6pm8pm.  Economic development and other city departments.  Planning and redesign group.  On 314 Day, they launched three new products.  Flyer on the table.  The first one is home stl.  A first time buyers home assistance, if they qualify for being under 80% of income.  They have to work with their particular lenders.  The second, Scale Up STL, which is a low interest loan for small business or non profits.  Mobilized STL which is a low interest loan program for small contractors and suppliers working with construction.  You can find more information at www.developstlouis.org.  Check out the event calendar.  The business assistance center in City Hall.  Also there are classes at Sumner high school for people wanting to start a business.  SLUP-STL.com for information on the Land Use plan.  They are looking for input, and they are focusing on blocks of cities, and preservation areas and development.  Planning will talk about it in the town hall.  As you may have heard, the Metrolink contract has been approved for Jefferson, and they are starting the design process.  They will be looking for input on that.  

Lori

Venice Cafe will be the after meeting hang out.  

Committee Reports

Events

First concert is Sunday May 19th, The Mighty Pines from 4pm-7pm.  They are our biggest draw every year.  The other one is Sept 22nd (Alligator), and we are finalizing details for the third concert. Tunes on Tap in October, the date will be released soon.  We paid to have the Gateway Cup ($3,000) so that is saving us money by not having it.  We don’t have the exact number of the number in our savings account.  We have roughly $40-50K in our savings account.  We are working on revitalizing that, and expand our sponsorship initiative to replenish that account.  

Sponsorship

We have monthly givings set up for donations.  On 420 we are having a fundraising event at Bluewood Brewing.  They will have a raffle that night, and prizes.  Same day as their Art fair, so we encourage people to attend early.  

One of our neighbors has done a lot of work helping the neighborhood.

Melissa 

There is an event happening Sunday April 21st, at Italia 1879, which is the Buggie factory on Pestalozzi.  Five neighborhood artists will be showcasing, as part of the show, several of the items that are going to be there.  A portion of the proceeds will go to the Benton Park neighborhood.  We have an author in then neighborhood that was recently published Whiskey Tender.  It’s free, and there is a wine and cheese reception.  

Building

N/A

Safety

Group Me Chat

Flyers and door to door

Lemp and Arsenal traffic calming study

Monthly Meeting

Garden/Cave

Parks

N/A

Special Guest:  

Art Opening May 3rd, from 5-8pm, 4 Hands, local food.  Venice is opening their patio the same night.  They are also doing a Benton Park Donation Box.

Mr. Montgomery

Father of 2.  Goes to 100’s of meetings a month.  He has a wife, and a dog named Bella.  Former Deputy Sheriff.  He worked in Jefferson City.  One of the bills he worked on was a campaign called St. Louis safe.  Implemented to have police wearing body cams.  Worked on a bill to make sure that they are trained.  Three things they want to work in the sheriff office, policy, criminal justice reform, and partnering with their city offices.  They have had 12 deaths in the city jail due to drugs.  He has decided that the Sheriff office should have dogs in their unit, so they can catch drugs going into their building.  The August 6th election is where you can decide on who to vote for.  To learn more go to montgomery4sheriff.com.  

Charles from Trailnet

Put your hand in front of your face.  Now imagine you were driving 55 mph.  You would have crossed 5 football fields in that time.  You could have killed someone or yourself, from using your phone while driving.  Trailnet’s new campaign to curb people from driving distracted.  It’s called Drive the Change.  Put your phone down and buckle up every time you drive.  

Speaker Cara Spencer mentioned Cheryl Glass:

Our MSD bill is 100% than people who live in similar size homes in the county.  She has dug through rate proposals, and analyzing their rates.  They cannot tell you why their rates are different for those in the county.