SRG Special Meeting Minutes April 9, 2026

May 13

Soulard Restoration Group | Board Meeting Minutes

Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 7PMSoulard Station | 1911 South 12th Street

Minutes prepared by Andrew Paniello, Secretary

Present: April Flores (President), John Cline (President-Elect), Neil Putz (Treasurer), Carlos Diaz (Treasurer-Elect), Andrew Paniello (Secretary), Wade Weistreich (Current Director-Existing), Abbey Bethel (Current Director-New), John Durnell (Current Director-New), Linda Hoffman (Current Director-New), Joy Christensen (Outgoing Director), Paula Dostal (Outgoing Director)

Absent: Amanda Ramcharan (Past President), Adriano Martinez (Past-Past President)

Call to Order/Opening Remarks

April Flores, President, called the meeting to order at 7:02pm. She thanked everyone for coming to the special meeting and noted that the primary purpose of this meeting is to discuss the Board vacancies, discuss the City’s proposed Bill 152 (related to food trucks), and also discuss the new email system. She stated that the first portion of the meeting would take place in an open format, we will briefly enter a closed session, and we will then return to an open session, where anyone is welcome to return.

Part One: Email

The SRG will be using a new email format, specifically applied to The Board, and certain committees. Board members with a specific position will have emails sent to their Soulard email (such as secretary@soulard.org) forwarded along to their personal email. Some members, including your Secretary, still need to set that up. There will also be new email signatures made available for our Soulard emails. Brenton Henry and Konstantine Brazhnik are leading the email setup.

Part Two: Bill 152

Bill 152 is a proposed bill that the City of St. Louis Board of Aldermen will vote on, on Monday, April 20th. The bill would allow food trucks to operate in various locations throughout the City, with minimal regulation. In Soulard, the area of operation would be on Lafayette, between 7th and 9th Streets.

The general consensus of The Board was that we aren’t opposed to food trucks in Soulard, per se, but this particular bill seems to have a lot of issues. It does not cover several necessary topics, including taxation, its impact on Soulard Market, CID coverage, trash, bathrooms, and nuisance liability (the bill would allow the food trucks to stay open until 1am).

The bill itself was drafted with very little input from neighborhood organizations, business associations, or community groups–many other neighborhoods across the City have had a similar reaction. John Durnell, noting that he wasn’t opposed to food trucks as a whole, stated he brought a petition that requests a delay in the vote until community input has been gathered.

The Board discussed some related topics, such as how food trucks work in other cities (including Portland, Oregon), the lack of research showing benefits of food trucks, possible alternatives, and the bill’s “reevaluation period.” The Board agreed that we will coordinate with the SBA and other neighborhood groups. The Board discussed the potential for issuing a letter outlining neighborhood concerns, and April Flores inquired whether the Board should proceed with such a letter without membership input. It was determined that a special Blaster will be sent to request feedback from membership to help inform next steps. Andrew will try to quickly finish these minutes; this topic will be discussed more at the next Board meeting.

Part Three: SRG Board Vacancies

The primary reason for the mid-month meeting was to discuss the two vacancies on the Board. John Cline, now President-Elect, and Bob Printz, former board member, had been removed by the Board during the March Board Meeting (see: March Meeting Minutes for more details)--this was a somewhat messy situation that the Board is trying to move past. The end result is that there are now two open Board seats, even following a recent round of elections.

April Flores, now President, reserves the right, according to our bylaws, to appoint individuals to fill both Board vacancies. However, given the current circumstances, she chose to open a discussion with the Board to explore potential options for the appointments. April introduced two initial options and encouraged additional alternatives to be voiced:

Use the pool of candidates from the most recent election who were not elected to fill the open seats
Hold a special election based on self nominations, allowing general membership to vote on the candidates

There was clarification that, for option two, the proposed “special election” would function as a straw poll of the General Membership, as a special election process is not formally outlined in the bylaws. This approach would allow option two to remain compatible with current bylaws. April indicated that she would base her appointments on the results of the straw poll.

Bob Printz, from the audience, asked for a full explanation of why he was removed from the Board. April Flores responded that this was not the appropriate forum for that discussion and encouraged follow up offline.

Andrew Paniello, Secretary, expressed strong support for Option Two, noting that it is the most democratic option and that it is generally the most fair to all parties involved. Anyone who wants to can campaign for the open seats. The downside of this option is that it requires a lot more work and will be a bit more complicated. John Durnell noted that having the democratic process play out in this way would be healing for the membership, following these recent tensions.

After weighing the pros and cons, the Board expressed general support for Option Two: holding a straw poll of general membership to help inform April’s appointments. The Board continued discussing the details of this process, including how to best communicate it with membership via an email Blaster and whether this communication should also be shared on social media. We then decided it was time to enter a closed session, as initially planned.

The Board entered into Closed Session at 7:55, with an estimated conclusion time of 8:30pm. Everyone who wasn’t a voting Board Member left the room.

Closed Session

Return from Closed Session

The Board emerged from Closed Session at 8:18, with a few people returning. April noted that the primary topic of the closed session was the straw poll.

The Board, now in open session, then made two votes, both unanimous (7-0, with one voting member absent):

The Board approved a motion to establish a straw poll survey based on member self nominations, in order to gather input from membership to help inform April Flores in making appointments to fill the Board vacancies. Candidates receiving the most support through this process will be considered for appointment, subject to Board approval.

The Board approved a motion to communicate information related to Board Bill 152 through both email and social media, while limiting communication regarding the straw poll to email only.

After these votes, we briefly discussed a few other topics, most of which will be covered more in-depth at the 4/15 Board Meeting, including the ad hoc committee for the church, the blaster, and timelines for the upcoming election/board filling process. April noted that she and Andrea Maddox-Dallas are working together to plan a retreat in the near future. We also voted, unanimously, to approve a modification to the Sunbelt rental lift budget item.