point of view

What really matters is the giving, not the getting. A Phoenix elementary school teacher who uses Sunday Morning's inspirational stories as lessons in kindness & character made a huge impression on his students with the tale of Secret Santa, a wealthy anonymous businessman who annually gives out hundreds of $100 bills to strangers. That motivated the kids to raise $8,000 - and then give it all away. "I never saw anybody give money away like that." The Children spent the day changing dozens of lives of random strangers & along the way they noticed something remarkable, the more they gave the more they got. "You get so many feelings in your body, it just makes you want to do it again". Their teacher wants the memory to be so strong that it drives them everyday in everything they do. "I've never felt this way in my life, this was really a life changer for me. Who ever said money can't buy happiness never gave it away". https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-secret-santa-club/

Monday, noon - Thrive Meet-up; 6pm - City Council Meeting

Tuesday, 6pm - Parks & Recreation Board, Planning & Zoning Commission Meetings

Friday, 10am - Public Safety Sales Tax Committee Meeting

• Celebrating work anniversaries this week include: Jason Ortbals, Firefighter/Paramedic - 6 years
• FACEBOOK POST - Shout out to City workers who took care of water main break last night. They were able to get water back on to a lot of people pretty quickly last night. For those of us that were directly affected by the break, they worked well into the night to get the water back on for us, well past midnight. For this I want to thank you. It can't be fun/easy working with water in the middle of a cold night.

City Council will hear audit presentation by Forvis for FY 21; consider recommendations from CIP/TT Sales tax Committee to allocate $200,000 from CIP Sales Tax for Fire Training Facility to be located behind the fire station, to allocate $53,300 from Transportation Trust Sales Tax for engineering/design agreement with Lamp Rynearson for FY 24 streetscape maintenance projects; presentation of Financials for November 23; closed session for personnel & real estate.

Parks/Recreation Board hears reports on financials & budget, & reports from Staff, Director & Committees; new business includes Parks maintenance mowers.

Planning & Zoning Commission will hold public hearing & make recommendations to City Council - to amend Special Use Permit text in zoning ordinance pertaining to Short Term Rentals, hear application for a SUP for Short Term Rental in Single-Family Residential District @ 812 St. Louis & consider application for Final Plat & Site Plan approval for Quik Trip @ 2021 W. Jesse James

Public Safety Sales Tax Committee will make recommendations to City Council regarding purchase of new ambulances with expectation for delivery to take more than 2 years

FY 24 Streetscape Maintenance Project to be funded with Transportation Trust Sales Tax includes additional base repairs & chip sealing in the Vintage subdivision & Rock Bridge Parkway, Bell Drive, High Drive, Forest, Golf Hill Drive, Liberty, Richmond, Kent, Owen & Highland Streets. UBAS work in Madison Park & West Springs subdivisions. The selection of streets follows the recommendations of the pavement condition index report with a focus on streets that require lower cost maintenance strategies to avoid expensive replacement if protected by lower cost maintenance strategies.

• PCI Report Highlights - 159.5 lane miles of city streets with an estimated valuation of $168M+ based on current price of $400/LF to construct a new street
• Preventative Maintenance Strategy includes chip seal estimated $3.7/SY with 8 year lifespan; UBAS estimated $10/SY with 10 year lifespan
• On a rating scale 0 to 100; 17% of our streets have PCI > 70 also called good or satisfactory = surface or joint problems, cheaper to repair;
• 35% of our streets are in the Critical Range with PCI between 55 & 70 also called Poor or Fair;
• 49% of our streets have PCI < 40 also called very poor, serious, & failed = pavement failing, expensive to repair
• Average PCI of system was 46.3
• Strategy to stabilize our PCI would require a yearly street maintenance budget of $800K for chip seal, crack seal, base repair. Our current budget is $850K
  

Went to the Hall of Waters today, just to shoot the trees & the building. Lovely old place. The trees decorated & sponsored by local businesses & are always a delight. If you have not visited the site, you should make time to do that. The Art Deco fixtures are right out of a Homes & Hearth magazine from 1938 or so.