Green Park City Attorney Paul Rost was celebrated earlier this month for receiving the Lou Czech Award from the Missouri Municipal League. At the city’s July 15 Board of Alderman meeting, Rost was recognized for the achievement, while the board also decided to move forward with installing audio and video equipment in the board’s meeting room to better connect with the community.
Every year, the Lou Czech Award is presented to one attorney at the Missouri Municipal League’s annual conference. To be considered for the award, one must display “the same high standards of accomplishment, professionalism and ethical conduct as exhibited by Lou Czech,” who served as a city attorney in the St. Louis area for 40 years. Czech also founded the Missouri Municipal Attorneys Association, an affiliated association of the MML, whose primary purpose is to enhance cooperation among and between municipal attorneys in the state while establishing relationships with state and municipal officials, both elected and appointed.
“I was truly honored that my peers recognized me with the award,” Rost said. “Missouri has a lot of really good local government attorneys from whom I learned so much. Hopefully, I can continue to do this work that I love for many more years.”
On top of serving as the Green Park city attorney, Rost is also the Manchester, Twin Oaks and Wright City city attorney. He is also a founding principal of Cunningham, Vogel & Rost, P.C. where he primarily focuses on municipal law, land use and zoning, governmental litigation and public finance law.
“I am truly thankful for the great folks in Green Park who gave me a chance to be their city attorney some 25 years ago. I could not have done it without their confidence and that of the other cities who have trusted me to be their city attorney,” Rost said. “I am also grateful for the help and support of my law partners and associates over the years, and more important, the love and encouragement of my wife and four daughters.”
Audio and video equipment would allow city to record and stream meetings
Later on the July 15 meeting agenda was a discussion to move forward with audio and video equipment that would allow board meetings to be recorded, streamed and posted online.
“This service promotes transparency, plus gives added convenience to persons who have something on the agenda to be able to attend remotely,” City Clerk Theresa Pfyl said. “(It’s also for) all the residents who can’t make it to the meetings to still see what is going on in the city.”
Though nothing has been decided yet as the project is still in its preliminary stages, Pfyl has reached out and received three bids from three local companies – The Brain Mill for $2,096.47, Computer St. Louis for $2,610 and Affordable Computers for $3,908.67.
Each company plans on handling the project a bit differently. The Brain Mill would have a micro-computer installed behind the existing television in the chambers area, along with a webcam mounted to the ceiling, while Computer St. Louis and Affordable Computers would use the Meeting Owl 3 – “an intelligent 360 degree conference camera, mic and speaker.” The Brain Mill’s bid also requires a laptop for an additional $900, making the bid total closer to $3,000. Computer St. Louis’ bid includes a 6-foot USB Extension, professional tripod, power supply, 8-port Managed Gbps POE switch and wireless access point. Affordable Computer’s bid, while more costly, includes an IdeaPad laptop and covers labor costs regarding software and printer installation, and other associated items.
“I verified through the city’s current IT provider, Affordable Computers, that each of these bids would work in our chambers. Affordable Computers also verified that if the audio/video system needs IT services, in the future, that they would be able to provide that service,” Pfyl said.
Each service would also require both a Zoom and a YouTube account at an additional charge.
“Estimated, because they would only give me a bid if I was creating it, the Zoom would cost approximately $2,689 a year,” Pfyl said. “I have not been able to get a quote yet on YouTube. I think it is a one-time thing, but I’m not positive, I’m not that familiar with YouTube.”
All six aldermen were in favor of moving forward with the project. A final decision on which bid to move forward with will occur