Benton Park Neighborhood Meeting
Tuesday February 5th 2024,
Meeting Started at 7:06pm
Agenda Overview: Minutes are always on the website, and will be considered approved.
New Officer Liason: Officer Rosa Rojas
Officer Rojas has been working for 8 years during the night shift. Community outreach for a month, and now working in the morning. Any questions she will stay after the meeting for 15 minutes. Last month we had 2 stolen autos. One was a parked Escalade on the 2100 Block of Missouri. A car was stolen on Lemp, unattended. Two larcenies in the neighborhood. 2300 Cherokee a white male went into an establishment and tried to swing at an employee. One burglary in 2800 Block of Missouri, Copper wire were stolen. One assault in the 2000(?) block of Sydney. Today at 12:30 there was a hold up at Lemp and Arsenal. Red Escalade robbed someone at gun point. She is from Wisconsin.
New member introductions:
Steven from Indiana. Since 2001.
Kylie and Alex on Aresnal. Since last summer
Scarla close to Gus’. Been here for 2 years.
Alfred Montgomery running for Sheriff.
Josh B.
Amanda and Joe 3200 block of Missouri. 18 years.
Claire, Adrian, Beth, just moved.
New Business:
February is the month we propose the budget. They will be on the website. If you have questions or concerns please contact us via the contacts on the website. A few changes from previous years. Our commitment is community engagement, and finding support with the city. Our budget will reflect that this year. IN the past we have done a good job of supporting the community. We are going to have fewer concerts. Post covid we have experienced a decline in donations. We had a great donation drive during the holiday party. Your donations directly goes into funding the events we put on, as well as the meeting space, and more. Lori has created a page that explains where the investment goes into. We are also cutting back on our expenses. We are going to scale back the Summer Concert Series into a few concerts. We will no longer be hosting the Gateway Cup on Labor Day. They are moving to Florissant, and that is awesome for the city, and we hope that we can still show support to this event.
Lori White:
At the meeting last month we had concerns about cats, recycling, the lake in the park, and more. As a follow up, we have a page on the site about recycling. A cat committee is being formed to help with the cat issues. If you are interested in joining the cat committee. There is a loosely forming Park/Lake committee for cleaning purposes. We are having a social after the meeting at Saturn Lounge. If you have any interest in joining any committee then please contact Lori or go to the website.
Alicia from Benton Park Cafe is officially opening this Thursday February 8th for a 1920’s themed party. Celebrating the new evening hours. Time is 5p-10p. Next month we are going to have Circuit Attorney Gore to speak.
Building Review Committee: Tim Mulligan
Darla Dougherty, the south side slum lord is being held accountable. Prior to the RFT article, one of her properties is in the neighborhood. 2100 Cherokee St. Three story house, that is in disrepair. Legal Services approached us in an attempt to take over the property. Building Committee has been working with them. She is now arrested, which means we cannot proceed. The building will be going up for sale. We will be updated when more information is available.
Tim wanted to introduce the committee that has been working on it. The national historic district was created for BP in 1985. It has a lot of benefits for developers, but it doesn’t do anything to protect what is built and what is torn down. 20 years ago we recognized that this wasn’t a trend that we wanted to continue. They worked with the alderman at the time and worked with the city to come up with a District code for BP. It was written into ordinance in 2006, and it mirrored Soulard’s code. Some of the terms were ambiguous, and needed to be changed. Previous attempt was thwarted by the pandemic. Last fall, they amassed the team they have now.
Marianne Smith, part of the group that help write original code. Some things were missing, and other things blocked creativity. They have been working and want to incorporate some of these revisions and standards. They want to make the standards easier to implement city wide. They are addressing two different groups with their standards. Homeowners and to provide clearer requirements for new construction or significant renovations. Mostly exterior. They would like the neighborhood to see the drafts and make comments or concerns.
Sean Dobson, works with historic architect. They will be posting updates on the neighborhood website and they have it linked to the city architecture ordinances. When we have changes they will post the before ordinance and what it is being changed to.
Meg Lusso, Cultural Resources Office. https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/planning/cultural-resources/index.cfm Map with color shows the jurisdiction of the office. Available on their website. They have 18 historic districts. The difficulty of the historic neighborhoods is that they were all allowed to write their own codes. They want all the definitions for the standards match between all districts.
Alderman Report: Cara Spencer
On the legislative front, they are dealing with red light cameras. Reallocating their $500 million funds. Lastly, the passed a senior tax brief on your property taxes. Funding the AirBNB legislative, they will be discussing that soon. On the local front, they are working on getting the park fountains more functional. Elbia, resident, has been persistent on making the change. Mardi Gras is this weekend. Cara is in direct communication with the festival operators. Contact her, if you have any issues.
7th Ward newly elected alderwoman. Alicia Sonnier
What they want to do with the new board is a lot of community cohesion. Please disregard previous bills about the unhoused. The new unhoused bill of rights, addresses the lack of space for the homeless. In the city of St. Louis we have 900 beds for emergency, only used temporarily. The new bill would be to expand shelters. The city does not run shelters, but they are working on ways to expand available beds. The committee hasn’t opened a shelter in 15 years. The unhoused providers cannot navigate the process, but the new bill is geared to make it more of a community process. On elf the specifics would be the provider sending a notification to the hearing date amongst the neighborhoods. They are redoing the signature verification, and they call over the phone. IF you don’t answer, then they wouldn’t be able to verify the signature. They will utilize an office that has already been verifying signatures for elections. The threshold is 51% to get a hearing. They want to move it to 25%, just to have the hearing.
Dog Park: Hayley Johnston
Renewal period has changed to the beginning of the year. The code will change in the next couple of weeks. Re-signup in January. Dog Park group me chat has been started. Community crime, and local things only.
Safety Committee: Derrick Kilgore
Yard signs with QR codes to sign up for the Block Captain Program, as well as the camera initiative will be going up in the neighborhood soon. We are working on a editable interactive map for identifying Block Captains. As well as expanded our camera coverage. We will be meeting the last Thursday of every month at Small Change at 7pm.
Cave/Garden Committee: Bill Kranz
One flower box left if anyone is interested. The second phase of the project is reopening the cave underneath the garden. It’s a difficult project. They also produce a report of all of the brewery page in which you can sign up.
Edit: They have a compost bin there.
Epiphany UCC:
Next Tuesday they will have a free spaghetti dinners. They will have gift bags for the unhoused. Also they are doing a concert on February 24th.
Email hello@bentonpark.org if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.