Friday "Holy Cow Hot" Night

Friday was just such a hot day that you couldn't fry eggs on the sidewalk, because they would evaporate before making it to the concrete. OK, maybe not quite that hot, but it really felt like it. They were saying the heat index could approach 120F, but I'm not sure if we made it or not.

Friday night we took in the last show of the Muny season, "Show Boat". And as my dear wife said, if we didn't like the show so much we would have stayed home. As it was, we made it through the show and it was fantastic. The singing and dancing was phenomenal as usual. And the big news was that Paul Blake announced that next year would be his last year of producing shows at the Muny. I had not realized he has been doing this for over 20 years.

It's going to be just peachy

It is going to be really hot by this afternoon, but that is not deterring my wife and daughter to head over to Eckert's today to go peach picking. My daughter starts school on Wednesday at the new Discovery Elementary School and this will (obviously) be the last summer break activity that they'll get to do together. I wish I was in a position to take off work and join them as I'm sure it is going to be lots of fun. I'm hoping my wife will at least take a lot of pictures.

Summer is ending

OK, the temperatures that we're supposed to see (Excessive Heat Warning through Thursday night) would seem to indicate that we're still in the depths of summer. However, over at Orchard Farm Elementary School they are having open house tonight and school starts on Wednesday. And my baby girl is starting first grade this year!

We attended the first PTO meeting of the year last week at the new Discovery School, which Orchard Farm was able to build in the southern end of the district due to passing a no-tax increase bond issue a few years back. The need for the additional space became quite apparent last year when they had 7 classes of Kindergarten. Holy Cow! That was a lot of kids. The elementary school on the main campus was utilizing all rooms available for teaching space.

The bond issue is only going to go so far though. One of the things that is really hurting the Orchard Farm school district is all the TIFs that the St. Charles city council has given out in the last five years. The city council has really built up the Fountain Lakes Industrial Park, but money is not flowing into the school district because of the TIF.

And over in the St. Charles School District, they expected to receive a one-time, $1.2 million payment in lieu of taxes in 2008 from Cullinan Properties, the company building a mixed-use center at the site of the former Noah's Ark hotel. The district still has not received the payment, although it's in the budget for the 2010-11 year.

According to the Suburban Journals (http://is.gd/eadvu), there is going to be a meeting between the St Charles City Council and the Orchard Farm, St. Charles, and Francis Howell School Districts to "improve communication." The meeting is over in the St. Charles School District's administration center at 400 North Sixth Street at 6pm on Tuesday night.

I'm not sure if it is open to the public or not, but I would anticipate the discussions to be about as hot as the weather.

Crazy Busy Saturday

I am not a rich man by any means. In fact, I have to work a part-time job, in addition to my full-time job. And that is especially important since my wife has been unemployed since July  2009. Her employer at the time rolled up their operations here and moved to them to Ohio. Since my wife was just an administrative assistant, her job did not move. Not that we would have moved anyway.

She has been looking for work doing what she knows how to do, but has not been lucky enough to find an employer that wants her. She and hundreds of her "closest" friends are all looking for work doing the same thing. She found out last weekend that the last job that she interviewed for had over 200 applicants for one opening. At least she made it to the interview part.

Anyway, it is Sales Tax Free Weekend in Missouri this weekend. And my part-time job (and I thank God that it is only my part-time job) is at a retail store in St. Peters. Oh. My. God. It was crazy busy all day long. We finally really had a break about 30 minutes before the store closed last night.

Not that I'm really complaining, just not enough time to really get done everything we needed to get done yesterday. We're always stuck in two cycles of operation: not having enough work coming in and too much work coming in.

On my way to work this morning, I passed by Crossfit-TNT on New Town Blvd and the crowd of participants in the BackStoppers fund raiser was definitely building. The parking lot was pretty full and they were spilling over into the parking lot next door. Which is encouraging. I'm glad they're getting started early in the day, because that 5K run would be brutal if it later this afternoon.

A better morning?

The scene was horrible yesterday morning. The sight of two school buses carrying school band members to their fun day at Six Flags met with disaster, leaving two dead. I can't even think how horrible it would be to get that phone call from the school.

Here is a short list of articles around the net covering the accident:  St. Louis Post Dispatch; NPR; Chicago Tribune; USA Today; KMOV; CNN; Salon

And to add further injury, the bus that was dispatched to pick up accident victims has brake failure and also crashes. Fox2Now

If you are going to be in St. Charles this weekend, be sure to check out the Backstopper Fundraiser - Heroes For Heroes Challenge - Aug 8 @ 8am. The fundraiser will be held at 3683 New Town Boulevard(Crossfit-TNT gym) in St. Charles.

How much is enough?

Story posted today in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (http://is.gd/e4bI9)
about a bill sponsored by Councilman Richard Veit to give a big pay
raise to the mayor of the city of St. Charles, MO.

For those playing along, the position of mayor was a part-time
position until 2007 when the council agreed to get rid of the City
Administrator position and make the position of Mayor full-time. The
salary of Mayor was increased at time to $60,000.

I agree with Councilman Dave Beckering that the current salary is too
low for somebody managing 500 employees and a budget of $100 million.
However, with the current economic climate I really don't think this
is the time to give a major increase to anybody.

Under the current setting, the Mayor's salary will raise to $64,000 in
January 2011. Veit's bill will mandate a 2.5% annual increase over
three years which will take the salary over $91,000 by 2014.

With tax revenues staying relatively static and casino revenues
dropping, now is not the time to be talking about large salary
increases. Shouldn't the city be working getting more business into
the city and encouraging city businesses to expand? How do we get the
EDC to get business growing in St. Charles?

What do you think?

It's an Orange Day

With temperatures expected to pop over 100F with a heat index of 115F,
it is going to be a hot one in St. Charles today. The air quality for
today is "Orange". Which means that sensitive children and adults and
people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit
prolonged, moderate exertion outdoors. Looks like we might get a break
tonight though when a front moves through. The high for Thursday is
supposed to be just under 90F. Whew, almost parka weather there.