respublica

Permanent patches

We've had an up close and personal view of utility work recently as one company or another has been opening up portions of Clayton Road from Big Bend to Demun and maybe even east of that. It's been something of an obstacle course to turn onto or off Clayton Road for months and the areas they finish (!) are lanes with bumpy irregular patches which reek havoc on cars. At the moment the stoplight intersection of Clayton and Seminary Place has been filled with asphalt which is a good two inches below the driving surface and just beyond that is a big iron plate a good two inches above the driving surface. Turning right is something of an effort and continuing west toward Walgreens you'll be driving over bumpy lumpy patched roads.

I always turn to the "Ask the Road Crew" column in Monday's Post-Dispatch to see what's happening in the metro area and the question from readers about bad road patches comes up a lot. And, these patches are always due to past utility work which has never been done well or resurfaced smoothly. The answer like this one from May 2: "Some of the issues you've described may stem from temporary patches on utility cuts (i.e., excavations in the pavement done by Missouri American Water or MSD), and which are awaiting permanent patches. I'll have our inspectors investigate. We're developing plans to resurface this part of Ballas. However, work won't begin until 2020 or 2021, at the earliest."

Permanent Patches! Oxymoron alert

This means for most roads tormented by utility work, we just have to live with the mess. That is always the answer. "We'll be resurfacing permanently, you just have to wait. Years.

There is an app named Nextdoor which if you download it, will put you in contact with people in your general neighborhood area. This is kind of a forum where you can ask about who to call to fix a leaky roof or find a lost dog or recent crime etc. This week the topic on our area Nextdoor was on the road conditions left behind by the utility work on Clayton Road. I was happy to read that we are not the only ones who are frustrated with the horrible shape these companies have left the roads. "

The problem is, no one can find who is in charge of permanently fixing these roads. Some are blaming the city of Clayton, others the County Board chairman, others just want to know who is in charge and can get things done correctly. What we do know is that Clayton Road is a County Road. But is repairing the road after work done by utilities part of anyone's contract? It seems that bids for repairs have not even been sent out which should have been done and approved before any utility work was begun.

Footprints on the cross

Last week I posted a story on the daffodil cross our student created in the area behind one of the dorms and facing Demun. They spent a lot of hours digging off the grass and top soil, placing 2000 daffodil bulbs and then covering it all with rich compost. I'm just here to relate once again how disrespectful so many of the local residents are to our campus. They come in large numbers all day long, taking walks or walking their dogs-letting their dogs loose to run around.

Yesterday Gayle and I went to check on the cross and found the top soil covered with big dog print holes and human footprints. This is really rude. It's obvious this is an important thing in this area, so the natural thing for most considerate people would be to stay away from it and keep their dogs away. But no, not here in Clayton.

What you see in this picture was all over the entire cross. We raked it all smooth again and hope that it won't happen again, but I have my doubts.

Actually, I am very close to seeing if we should send notices to the various neighborhood email lists voicing our unhappiness with how our campus, which has always tried to be welcoming, is now very weary of this kind of behavior. This is not even mentioning the piles of dog poop we find which people are too lazy to pick up. I'd even be in favor of closing off the campus to outsiders if this keeps up. It's very aggravating and not something you associate with the public view of Clayton.

 

O Christmas tree O Christmas tree

On the southwest corner of Big Bend and Clayton Road is a large brick building which has for many years has housed a florist, antique store and maybe something else. The second floor had apartments or maybe small offices. This past fall it was learned that these businesses would have to vacate in order for another urgent care to take their place. Both the antique store and florist did not decide to just give it up and go out of business, but moved to other places in the area.

During the late fall the inside of the building was gutted and the outside surrounded by orange tape and large signs warning of danger. Then last week the outside began being demolished. The west side sent down first and most likely this week will see the rest come down. We drove down Big Bend yesterday and looked up to see this sad, old, dusty Christmas tree which pretty much says it all about the change coming.

The lights went out again last night

We're back to the frustrating puzzle of who is disconnecting our Christmas lights on the trees coming up from Demun. Yesterday it was noted that they were not on and a closer look showed the disconnect. This is more than maddening and I plan to let our aldermen know today that something is not so very perfect here in Clayton.

The odd thing is that I happened to walk Ferdie down to the candy shop on Demun yesterday afternoon and came across a man about my age who had his dog out there in the general vicinity. I was paying more attention to the dog who was loose and running around after squirrels but realized later he did not see me for some time because he was under a couple of the trees. When he finally saw me we talked dogs for a bit and I went into the store. When I headed back up the park hill to go home I noticed him behind the ISO dorm in the middle of a big pile of an Ash Borer tree which had been taken down recently. He was stuffing pieces of the tree under his jacket.

Weird. It wasn't til last night that I wished I'd paid more attention to what he was doing initially.

A disturbing turn of events around here

We've encountered some sickening behavior on our campus property lately, most taking place in the park like area which borders Demun. You wouldn't really think of these things as Clayton-ish, but sadly it is. Whether it's a feeling of entitlement or anger at a religious institution I don't know.

Lots of local area residents use this park-like area for walks. There has begun to be a practice by someone or several someones to bag their dogs' poop and then toss the bags under big pine trees or tie the bags to tree branches. This has not been a isolated thing, but regular goings on. The seminary has many trash cans all over the place so there was no excuse for this other than some weird behavior.

We had to have two big Emerald Ash Borer trees cut down recently because they were found to be diseased as were many in this area. They may have looked good on the outside, but a diagnosis by tree experts found the disease underneath the bark. Left alone, the disease will cause the tree limbs to fall and possibly the tree itself which could hurt someone walking nearby. Well, a local tree loving person got angry enough that two trees were cut down that he or she painted "WHY WHY WHY???? and some other words on the downed trunk and then proceeded to smear dog poop all over it.

This weekend, we think Sunday, someone unplugged all of our Christmas lights which many of our students spent hours the past two weeks stringing on trees from Demun up the sidewalk to the campus. They did not merely unplug the extension cords (which they did) but they also detached the plugs from each string of lights which plugged into other strings. They also stole a spotlight from white nativity down there. It took the better part of yesterday for our grounds director to plug everything back in yesterday. This was not done by kids, many lights were up too high for a kid and kids might unplug extension cords but not every single light string. This was done by someone with issues.

I don't know what's going on, the seminary has always welcomed outside people to walk around and enjoy the campus, but this is too much. Yesterday I asked if it would be possible to get a security camera pointed into the park area. I'm irritated enough that I'd sit down there myself and if I saw anything I'd be tempted to photograph the person (s) and then print off pictures and nail them to trees in a "Wanted" poster style.

But we want to walk all over your property

On Monday the Clayton Board of Aldermen were to vote on an appeal of a city permit involving the former Maryland School. The appeal was brought forth from nearby residents who formed a group called Protect Clayton Neighborhoods. The Centene Corporation now owns that property and plans to renovate 59,335-square-foot building for an early childhood development center for use by company employees and Centene University, to provide education and leadership development programs.

The school will, for all intents and purposes, still be a school. But the people who live nearby want to use that property like they've been doing for walks through the green space areas. It doesn't matter to them that the area is now private property, they just want to do what they want to do there. The meeting had an hour of public input before the board decided to delay their vote.

A former St. Louis County judge, Susan Block, spoke and said she wants, "to be able to walk through the green area there and not be barred off by an iron gate."

Many of the other public input was similar. Finally the city manager spoke and said, "those appealing would like the city to require Centene “to allow anyone onto Centene’s private property for any purpose at any time other than when the permitted facilities are in operation,” but he called that an imposition on a private property owner who wouldn't receive just compensation."

The arguments from residents strikes me as a whole lot of feelings of entitlement. This is fairly similar to what we see here on our campus as Clayton people use our property for their walks, bike rides, dog exercise and pretty much think they own the place.

I wonder how the judge and other neighbors would feel if local people used their yards for walks and picnics.

Clayton city news

Each month residents of Clayton get a City Views mailing which contains updates on things going on around the town. This issue has a blurb on when leaf collections will be made and which streets. This is something of a big perk for Clayton people, not us on the seminary campus, but for those living along city streets. They just blow or rake their leaves onto the street in front of their homes and when their dates come up, a street sweeper sucks them all up. No bagging for Clayton people. This is a huge benefit especially since Clayton is filled with trees.

But what I got a kick out of this month was the Ward 1 update from our two aldermen. Seems as though there has been some unhappiness from some residents in this ward when new houses have been built and don't look like all the rest. "While new houses may not have all the old world details of those they replaced, they do provide a fresh, updated look that adds value to our community, particularly when considering the conditions that some of the properties had fallen into. The new quickly becomes assimilated into our environment, leaving us struggling to recall the details of what was there before."

There is a practice here for houses to be knocked down and new ones built in their place, often bigger and more modern.

But this part made me chuckle. I had no idea Demun was getting bike lanes and I have no idea where they are going to squeeze them in, but they're on the way.  "And the new Demun cut-through bike lanes will keep pedestrians from getting mowed down and bicylists from getting clothes-lined by dog leashes."

There you have it folks. Clayton in a nutshell.

Clayton residents attacked by big birds

This story headline got my attention last night. I mean, seriously, birds of prey attacking Clayton people is pretty unusual and the descriptions of the attacks are horror movie worthy.

"When he grabbed me the first time I turned around.  He was just above me.  His claws were there, the talons. We were making eye contact. It was horrible. You could hear the wings…and then I ran across the street and he came after me.  Then I came back across the street again.  I did a zig-zag all the way up the street.  He continuously came after me."

"The thing that has stayed with me is that sound that it made when he was scratching my skull.  It was awful."

"An owl rammed the back of my head, left scratches and a bump."

And more like this. There was uncertainty about what kind of bird was doing this, an owl or maybe a hawk.

A representative of the Wild Bird Sanctuary advised: "running or walking with a shiny, Mylar, balloon or even a cap with cutout of large, white eyes on the back of it to throw off the bird's element of surprise and keep it away."

I'm not sure too many people in Clayton will be making large white eye cutouts to paste onto a cap, but you never know. A clever entrepreneur might be able to make some money selling these.

Back in 2010 we had some owls on the seminary campus who had babies which ended up settling in a big tree right outside our bedroom window. Every night for some months in the summer the young owls screeched to high heaven while they waited for the parents to bring them fresh kill for food. It was interesting and also disturbing.

This experience has me believing the birds attacking Clayton people are owls. Owls are night creatures, they kill and feed during that time while hawks are daytime birds. Here is a link to a blog post I did back in 2010 about our owls and the local couple who tracks them every year. "The man told me that you have to be very careful not to get between the parents and the owlets at feeding time, the parents can get very angry and violent."

Even though Fall seems an odd time for baby owls, this may explain why they're attacking people. The young are nearby.

I also made a short video of one of the parent owls sitting on our chimney surveying the area for prey and protecting his young.

 

Now this is a home safety list

With so many car and home break-ins and other one on one crimes happening in the St. Louis area these days many municipalities have begun publishing information on how best to protect yourself or your property. Clayton has gone above and beyond, almost to the point where you just have to shake your head.

I'm not going to list them all here, but click this link to Clayton's info to see for yourself.

You wouldn't know there's an election in Clayton

On April 4th there will be municipal elections all over the St. Louis area and Metro East. On the ballot in the city of St. Louis is the election of a new mayor and even though there are two people running, one democrat, one republican, it's well known that the democrat will win. The race for mayor took place during the primary, St. Louis city never elects a republican.

In the Metro East many races are hotly contested with signs everywhere, Facebook pages with lots of comments, elections which make it worthwhile to turn out.

But here in Clayton you'd never know there was to be an election for city government. An aldermanic position from each of the three wards is open and in two of those wards only one person is running. In ward 3 (downtown) there is finally some competition with 2 running. I have seen no signs anywhere or any talk of this election. There must not even be school board position on the ballot or a proposition. So what will we have to vote for come the 4th? St. Louis Community College trustees or some such.

Sometimes when doing our morning walk with local Clayton neighbors we talk about how little information ever comes out from the city. You really have no idea what's happening with local government. The Facebook page is mostly filled with upcoming events, not city hall news. There is no local paper and the monthly City Views has become a one pager with little of interest. If you happen to run into your alderman while walking or in a store you might learn something about what's going on, but that's about it.

Too bad really. A city this size should have lots of news to report. What I appreciate about Collinsville is how much news you can get. While there is really no local paper, there are Collinsville Facebook pages which are very active and city council meetings are videoed live as well as archived on the website for viewing.