ST. LOUIS – The City of St. Louis wants to hear from the public about how to spend the more than $280 million from the Rams settlement.
The St. Louis Board of Aldermen held a meeting on Monday to discuss how to get community input and ways to spend the Rams settlement money.
“We are looking to figure out what the community expectations are for us in terms of the (money) that we have from the Rams settlement,” Aldermanic President Megan Green said.
The board wants to make sure each resident has a chance to voice their ideas on how to spend the money. Before people can give their ideas on ways to spend the money, the board is asking the public for the best way to reach as many city residents as possible.
“We know that this is a historic opportunity. We know the public wants to have a say in it. So we want the public to tell us what they want to see from us in terms of getting their engagement throughout this process,” Green said.
The city is already getting feedback online, where they said 39% of the comments on the portal are about crime and public safety. Some other ideas people wrote about include replacing turf in The Dome at America’s Center for the Battlehawks, spending money on police and neighborhood safety programs, and making repairs to streets and roads.
The board said Monday’s meeting is about different ways to get feedback on community engagement to make sure every voice is heard about how to spend the settlement money.
“Our survey is out; it closes Oct. 15. They’re still going to do paper ballots to reach folks that, like you said, from communities that the online is accessible and then there will be some time of synthesizing all of these submissions and analyzing that for the most common suggestions,” Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier said.
St. Louis City residents can share their input online here.