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Thank you so much for joining us for Last Call.

This is where we get to the topics that we just didn't have time for in the first segment.

Alvin, in St.

Charles County, they've decided to close down a splash pad at Kinetic Park, which I think is at 64 and 364.

Don't quote me on that one.

But I do know that this was a slippery water pad that kids were falling, apparently numerous kids were falling and hurting themselves.

So they shut it down.

And when you took a look at that, what was the first thing you thought?

Well, I just thought that it was somebody had a quote like, oh, it's just a lawsuit waiting to happen.

And I'm kind of thinking like, you know, are we stopping things because, you know, somebody said, oh, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I'm not there.

I don't know how dangerous it is.

But it looked like a slip and slide to me.

And we played on them and we didn't get hurt.

And I just don't.

I mean, the next thing, do you close the pool because somebody falls down and or hits their head on the diving board?

Not drowns.

But I mean, I just don't know.

Maybe this is just don't go wobbly.

No, no.

I think they're closing it not because it's dangerous.

I think they're closing it because there's a fear that someone will sue.

My question was, I thought these things are supposed to be slippery, that kids run and then dive on them and slide along.

And if kids are tripping on it, why don't they just say, hey, you can't walk over this thing?

It's too slippery.

This is but it's it's we have we're having a major definition crisis here because it sounded to me like the splash pad is concrete, like like they are.

You know, one of the mothers described it as a wet, like a soaking wet garage floor.

And one of the worst went one of the worst back injuries I've ever had was on a soaking wet garage floor.

That is that's concrete, like a slip and slide the way the ones we used to have in our backyard.

And I know that you probably didn't.

I know some somebody on the panel is going to say we didn't have grass.

Most of us had grass in our yards.

And that's where the slip and slides.

Now, why would I say that way?

Because that's just what his album is.

Denied grass.

No, no, I'm sure.

I'm sure our Lord was not like a Chesterfield law.

Channel four sent Russell Kinsel out.

He did a well-researched report and he interviewed women, one aunt and one mom whose kids were seriously hurt.

One kid had a bump on the back of his head after he fell off the splash pad and he hit a decorative rock that was nearby.

Well, I obviously thought a splash pad is something that you put on the lawn or anywhere.

You're right about that.

I didn't know there were like decorative rocks within a few feet of the thing.

That's a bad idea right there.

Well, and I like people out having fun.

If people would just quit having fun.

And bleeding.

But I love the part of the story where they said that it met the minimum standard.

It's like, I'm sorry if I'm a mom of little kids.

This is kind of like the bike path.

Not that the bike path is dangerous and Webster.

But at the same time, obviously they didn't just decide and build this thing themselves.

It's like, hey, let's create this thing.

It had to be something that was already being used.

It pools around the world.

And they said that a third party contractor looked at it and inspected it.

But I looked at the CDC website and they actually have warnings about splash pads that a lot of kids wear their shoes onto them.

And they step maybe in dog matter.

And then they're wearing their shoes.

So you can get fecal oral hepatitis and other waterborne illnesses.

You are a buzz kill tonight.

Absolute buzz kill.

How many people are taking their dogs to do their business next to the baby pool at the municipal park?

This is the CDC.

How deep did you dive into this?

I used to interview presidents.

Doesn't like baseball games.

Wendy, one of my favorite streets in the world is Manchester.

Anything you want to buy is on Manchester Road.

OK.

But it's run by MoDOT.

And MoDOT is thinking maybe we should reduce the speed limit from 35 to 30 miles an hour.

Because apparently someone was recently clocked at 110 miles an hour.

Kirkwood.

What do you think?

In Kirkwood on Manchester Road.

Trying to get to Nathaniel Reed.

Well, and that's exactly right.

And the fact that it cuts Manchester, which when we were Manchester adjacent in our little what I like to call the baby house, we didn't even go on it on Saturdays because everybody referred to it as manslaughter road.

I mean, it was in a park.

Truly.

It's a parking lot on Saturdays.

And that's because you've got a lot of very successful big box businesses.

You've got a lot of in Kirkwood.

You've got, you know, some of the smaller stores.

I and I again, this is getting back to that kicking the can down the road problem that we have.

This has been a problem forever.

It's been a problem forever on Manchester.

But we just keep saying, I'll fix it one day.

And now you've got people dying, pedestrians dying.

They've died.

They've died many times on Manchester Road.

Pedestrians have been hit.

So I wish the MoDOT all the best.

But when they were talking about dealing with driveways and how that's going to affect businesses and residents in how many municipalities out Manchester Road, eight or nine, you know, Godspeed.

Hey, that's one reason nothing's going to happen very fast at all, right?

Because the merchants who are along there, they're not going to have a new bike path put in like that.

Anything that impedes people from getting their businesses, they're going to be against.

Somebody passed me going 100 miles an hour on the way down here today on I -44.

Maybe they were trying to get to the sinkhole.

I don't know.

But they're not going to reduce the speed limit on I-44 because I'm nuts out there driving 100 miles an hour.

I don't know.

I've never found Manchester to be that big.

Well, I think that stick with me here.

I've got a radical idea.

They set up radar and start writing tickets.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Four more years.

I don't know.

I mean, because I grew up in the south area.

I knew you didn't go through St.

George.

You didn't speed.

There's a whole lot of folks who still don't speed in Rock Hill.

Exactly.

Clarkson Valley.

Everybody knew where they were at.

Now, all of a sudden, it became terrible to ride those.

And there were some abuses of the speed trap economy.

But it also slowed people down.

Knocking five miles an hour off a speed limit isn't going to help.

If you're already going 20 miles over, what?

If you're doing 60 in a 35, you're only going to do 55 in a 30?

I mean, it's ridiculous.

But how about enforcing the law that's there and write people tickets?

Hit them in their pocketbook.

The word gets out, hey, when you're going through Kirkwood in this Manchester area, slow down.

That's an idea.

Just throwing it out there.

And good one.

Yeah.

Well, you know, when the law was changed, it was Senate Bill 5 in the General Assembly in Jefferson City.

It was promoted by then Kirkwood resident.

And now U.S.

Senator Eric Schmidt said that municipalities can only keep 20 percent of the ticket revenues.

Or no, the ticket revenues can't exceed 20 percent of the municipal budget.

So I think a lot of cities said, hmm, it's not worth it.

It's not worth the unintended consequences.

I mean, at the time, it seemed like a righteous idea.

And it has not worked out.

A Glendale resident.

Oh, Glendale.

Very.

Oh, sorry.

And shame on the cities who thought it was only about the money and not about the safety of their residents.

Well, hey, Bill, I want to ask you about Clayton, Olivette, I think Richmond Heights, Shrewsbury, Webster, all thinking about merging their fire departments.

Each city is going to put in $40 ,000 for a consultant study to see if it makes sense.

What say you?

Well, I think that I could save them the $40,000 and say it probably will make sense, because all of those cities you mentioned are cities that don't have a lot of fires, you know, because of building codes and sprinkler systems and smoke alarms.

Modern buildings don't have so many fires.

And what we really use the fire departments for is EMTs.

I mean, you know that you're going to need an ambulance ride a couple of times in your life, and the chances of your house catching on fire is much slimmer.

So I think that these cities are looking for a way that you can continue to, you know, have good-paying jobs in the fire department, but merge them and eventually not have quite as many firefighters.

Bill, we're not going to, like, do it for free.

Reed McClellan would have done it for $30 ,000.

He wouldn't do it for free.

But no, the people at Kirkwood Fire Department have told me that they do respond to pretty many fires in Kirkwood.

Now, I don't see them, but I mean, but they still say they go to fires, so I... Well, and I would imagine that the combined fire department could still respond to those fires.

I mean, it's not like you can't go to them, you know what I mean?

That's a good point.

I just think that the counties needed less police departments and fire departments for a long time.

But if you merge them, would your local little firehouse get shut down, you know, or something like that?

I think there is a little fiefdom thing.

Well, there's a political aspect to it, absolutely.

Who was the Clayton municipal leader that was quoted in... David Gibson.

David Gibson, thank you.

And he said, if we could go back, this would be the last way that we would... Wasn't that the story about the fire departments, how we would have the fire departments completely... Well, you know what's happened, Winky?

We know the NCAA has a transfer portal, but there's a huge transfer portal in the county among firefighters, and they go from one to the other for more money.

And if you combine six or seven cities and their fire departments, that means that there's one less bidder.

I mean, one of the biggest, fastest growing expenses is the labor in these fire departments or the EMTs, and that'll give the cities a little more leverage.

They do have a union representative on this committee that's examining it.

But they would also all ask for a unilateral raise, and then you'd be, instead of having to deal with it in your own municipality, it would be, oh, now, what, 600 firefighters are demanding a raise instead of 60.

And usually residents don't want to deny a firefighter a pay raise.

Well, and they're not pulling this out of thin air.

There's already districts in the county that provide protection for a number of small municipalities.

But because of the number of municipalities, it is really kind of very confusing.

Fair point to make.

And that's all we have for this program.

Thanks so much for joining us.

See you next week.