732
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732

PostDec 11, 2024#5301

If this is true and passes, it will rival the  Disney downtown park as city’s most missed opportunities. Absolutely ridiculous. Completely DEI-centric, and nothing towards economic growth or downtown progress. Vote these stupid bisches out ASAP.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5302

I’ll hold criticism until they’ve had an opportunity to outline what exactly any of these are. But I am skeptical and bored with these ideas.

Amazing the stretching leaders have to do to avoid appreciating downtown. They deserve the headlines.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5303

The housing portion does include the ability to allocate money towards projects that convert large vacant buildings into residential

The roads and sidewalks pot is also available for downtown to go along with the $40m in downtown specific projects already programmed and paid for

PostDec 11, 2024#5304

Here is the bill

I think all in all it’s a pretty good bill that covers the things that people wanted covered.
BB153 Combined.pdf (196.95 KiB)   0

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PostDec 11, 2024#5305

addxb2 wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
I’ll hold criticism until they’ve had an opportunity to outline what exactly any of these are. But I am skeptical and bored with these ideas.

Amazing the stretching leaders have to do to avoid appreciating downtown. They deserve the headlines.
Depending how much of the infrastructure money for streets is spent downtown it could make a big difference. For reference, the 7th street project is going to cost $3.5 Million (not including the millions being pumped into Broadway, 4th, and Market). If a third of the money is spent on downtown, that's still about 6 similar projects in downtown. Which would definitely be a big improvement. I would love to see $100M pumped into downtown infrastructure, and definitely think it would do wonders, but that may have always been politically feasible for the uber progressives on the board. Although downtown is surely neglected in comparison to peer metros, city leaders seem to consider downtown a thriving success compared to the rest of the region. Totally different ideology from places like Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas etc. where literally tens of millions in public money are pumped into their infrastructure almost every year and downtown is seen as the jewels of their metro area. 

919

PostDec 11, 2024#5306

I would have been fine with every penny going to downtown infrastructure and residential conversion. This is fine and does a little bit of everything but feels like we are covering things we should already try to budget for anyways. Hopefully most of this money goes downtown in the end once it is distributed.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5307

whitherSTL wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
If this is true and passes, it will rival the  Disney downtown park as city’s most missed opportunities. Absolutely ridiculous. Completely DEI-centric, and nothing towards economic growth or downtown progress. Vote these stupid bisches out ASAP.
I am curious as to what part of this spending allocation plan you disagree with. To me it seems like a pretty solid one, especially since almost all of the buckets will contribute directly to economic growth. Keep in mind I am a new member here and I might be inexperienced in evaluating proposal like this one.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5308

^ Best just to ignore them and their dog-whistle acronyms.

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2,623

PostDec 11, 2024#5309

The childcare section of the fund seems a little short-sighted IMO. Reading the bill is sounds like we are just going to help subsidize childcare for city workers, which is great, but what happens when that money runs out? Even when pursuing matching funds it seems like this will run out. It's an inherently unsustainable program.

IMO this problem should be tackled by using this money to construct new childcare facilities that can then be operated by the city from a separate but sustainable pot of money. We could also use the money for grants to encourage private daycare facilities to open their doors in the city.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5310

I think that account would be set up as an endowment with x % used each year. There is another complimentary bill that would have voters vote next spring on additional childcare funding

732
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732

PostDec 11, 2024#5311

This is a complete sham of a program. These funds were derived from a downtown entertainment entity that left. Shouldn’t the funds then be used solely for downtown? Between the Mayor and that loser Meghan Green, all they want to do is put money in people’s hands and free services for said people. Do they not care at all about economic progress, a cleaner and more presentable downtown?

Does anyone here have kids? I have teenagers and they can’t wait to go away from college and never come back. Do we want our kids to come back and contribute? If not, the out-of-owners like Green fill the vacuum

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1,610

PostDec 11, 2024#5312

whitherSTL wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
 I have teenagers and they can’t wait to go away from college and never come back. 
There might be several reasons your children want to move away and never come back

919

PostDec 11, 2024#5313

^Um teenagers have wanted to leave home and think they will never go back to their hometown since the beginning of time. Then, many get to the end of college and romanticize their hometown. May not always go back but that’s just kind of not representative of anything lol. Everyone is harder on their hometown than any other place

Anyways, I do agree all the money should have went directly into downtown. Downtown needs it and that’s what experienced the biggest loss from the whole ordeal. Lost game day crowds, the money already poured into Bottle District, the revenue and population that a new stadium district would have produced, etc. Disagree that it’s some sham of a bill to be corrupt and pay administrators to do nothing. I believe it is the bill to try to please everyone a little, which I do think is a mistake because you will never please everyone but not horrible. Instead of breaking the money into such small pieces that it’s hard to see substantial impact in any of those categories, I would also have put every dollar into downtown infrastructure and vacant buildings. There’s still a chance that those categories mostly go to downtown when we get the details (which it should).


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595
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PostDec 11, 2024#5314

This is a great a big fat waste of money another wasted opportunity in making downtown a priority. They seem to not care about wanting a welcoming vibrant downtown. I give it the benefit of the doubt but still it’s just wasteful. 👎🏽


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732
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732

PostDec 11, 2024#5315

Bart Harley Jarvis wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
whitherSTL wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
 I have teenagers and they can’t wait to go away from college and never come back. 
There might be several reasons your children want to move away and never come back
To get away from the snowflakes like you.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5316

PlatinumBlues wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
This is a great a big fat waste of money another wasted opportunity in making downtown a priority.  They seem to not care about wanting a welcoming vibrant downtown. I give it the benefit of the doubt but still it’s just wasteful. 👎🏽


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Not at all, none of this is wasteful and all of it available for downtowns benefit, even childcare that gives priority city employees, of which 3000 are downtown based. If childcare can be a leg up in recruiting, that's another 500-700 downtown employees the City can add. 

portion of the $70M for housing will be specifically targeted towards large vacant office buildings 
downtown roadway projects will be able to get money from the $60M roads fund 

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PostDec 11, 2024#5317

While I understand the potential benefits of how they are deciding to spend the money, especially the $70M on housing, I also think I overall oppose this allocation.

I think a significant chunk needed to be spent downtown specifically and it's incredibly short sighted to not do that. I personally would have put all $277M of it towards the Green Line if I was king as that will single handedly change the city more than any other project. Anything to close that funding gap a little more.

732
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732

PostDec 11, 2024#5318

Adding employees downtown that are on the public payroll is completely meh. How about use those funds to attract big PRIVATE employers to relocate downtown?

What a thought!!!

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PostDec 11, 2024#5319

Taking care of city workers is an excellent use of this money. Everyone complains about a lack of services and then moans about city workers getting a hand. You can’t have it both ways.

The Youth Programming spend is a great idea but sounds vague. I hope they have an idea what they will do with this money. City run after school programming would be great.

732
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732

PostDec 11, 2024#5320

Bart Harley Jarvis wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
whitherSTL wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
 I have teenagers and they can’t wait to go away from college and never come back. 
There might be several reasons your children want to move away and never come back

See a Democrat politician’s quote about area high schoolers wanting to leave STL:

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... 2024-12-11


Pull your heads out of the sand.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5321

The Beganovic Compromise: Bill 153 is good, lets make it better. Alders should show their support for DT, citys economic engine, by establishing a Downtown Drawdown Fund & still spend the majority of $ improving everything from infrastructure to housing &employee retention/hiring
Screenshot 2024-12-11 134607.png (43.12KiB)

595
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595

PostDec 11, 2024#5322

dbInSouthCity wrote:
PlatinumBlues wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
This is a great a big fat waste of money another wasted opportunity in making downtown a priority.  They seem to not care about wanting a welcoming vibrant downtown. I give it the benefit of the doubt but still it’s just wasteful. 👎🏽


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Not at all, none of this is wasteful and all of it available for downtowns benefit, even childcare that gives priority city employees, of which 3000 are downtown based. If childcare can be a leg up in recruiting, that's another 500-700 downtown employees the City can add. 

portion of the $70M for housing will be specifically targeted towards large vacant office buildings 
downtown roadway projects will be able to get money from the $60M roads fund 
Still think it’s a waste but that’s just me I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt the next 4 years are beyond critical for downtown whoever becomes mayor


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PostDec 11, 2024#5323

quincunx wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
The water dept is a part of city govt.
Sewer is MSD.
Got it, thanks.  Was trying to recall from my old home ownership bill paying days in Shrewsbury (understand that it is not in or part of the city) and could recall MSD but wasn't sure if they covered both water & sewer.

Hopefully a good chunk of it goes towards lead service line replacements.  

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PostDec 11, 2024#5324

Are they really though? StL County isn’t building a convention center or any sports stadiums in the next 4 years. It’s not building a train station or bus terminal. 4 major interstates won’t be converging in the county in the next 4 years. 5 class 1 railroads won’t converge in the county in the next 4 years.

The next 4 years are no more critical for Downtown than the previous 4 were. Nor are they any more critical than any other 4 year period in the last 70 years.

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PostDec 11, 2024#5325

dredger wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
quincunx wrote:
Dec 11, 2024
The water dept is a part of city govt.
Sewer is MSD.
Got it, thanks.  Was trying to recall from my old home ownership bill paying days in Shrewsbury (understand that it is not in or part of the city) and could recall MSD but wasn't sure if they covered both water & sewer.

Hopefully a good chunk of it goes towards lead service line replacements.  
American Water is the non-sanitary water provider in the county and most of the region

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