City Council - Regular Meeting

Um, there is a signup sheet for that. And then if you're here to speak on an item that is not on the agenda, there's a signup sheet for that. So, if you wouldn't mind to sign up for us, we would appreciate it. Give everybody a minute or two. Yeah. Happy new year everybody. Happy new year. I had seen y'all to be see around the table. Dennis. Yes. Welcome Dennis. Dennis. How are Good. You're on the other side tonight.

Bill has an agenda item that he was here to talk about. [laughter] a lot of pen for sake. I'll have some questions prepared. We'll try to wrap it up by

one resation. all this baby off like what happened. I was like Lauren will be two. Oh,

okay. Okay, so 601 and so welcome to the January 13th city council meeting.

I will call us to order and then if we'll have the pledge of allegiance and we have a scout here. if you'll come introduce yourselves and then if everybody would please stand for the pledge and remain standing for a moment of silence. Hello my name is Arish. I'm a part of troop 36. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under indiv. Thank you.

Sanchez Patterson here. A present. SA here. Sudter here. Richardson here. Birkhart here. Hook here. [clears throat] Motion to approve the minutes of the December 22nd, 2025. Second. Motion and a second. Roll call, please. Patterson, yes. Yes. SA, yes. Sudter, yes. Richardson, yes. Borheart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. We'll open the committee of the whole. I will turn it over to Chris, who is your current chair. Okay. So, we'll talk about the city council calendar for 2026. Do we have It is in It was in your agenda. Okay.

Um, so we didn't we are trying to not print copies. If you all want copies, we will, but it is in there. Um the just to kind of go over a couple things with you. What we did is um we've got four quarterly financial updates that are um going to be on city council dates. So they'll be will start the committee since we're doing committee of the whole for all meetings. It'll be they'll be in those. And then um a county did uh our finance did want to do instead of an all day budget review, they wanted to break it into two evenings and that is the 9th and 10th of November which also one of those fails on a falls on a current city council date. So y'all that was recommendation from finance.

That would be a Monday and Tuesday. Monday and Tuesday. Um, so we've kind of condensed meeting dates, but you may have longer meetings and then we're doing a committee of the whole at every city council meeting. So, and so on the special the special ones, will you all send out calendar invitations? Yes, but they're actually those quarterly they're falling on city council. Okay. Dates. The only date that's going to be a Monday night date is going to be in November the 9th. Okay. because and we'll do um two nights of what is currently the all day budget review will be in two evenings. Perfect.

Y'all okay then did we need to talk about that? Um, so there is one. So we have in the past moved if if a city council meeting falls on spring break week. Um, so several and so there is a March 24th current council meeting. Do we want to move that? I will be out of town the week. So last week I'll also be out of town. So would we move it back a week like the 30? Yeah, I think you were going to want to do it

because there's five weeks though. Yeah, there's five. So, we would want to move it to the 31st if you guys are in agreement with that. Any opposition to that? No. Okay, let's do that. I believe that's the only one that we thought there was. Perfect. Okay, thank you. We'll have our annual city council organizational discussion. Um, we have typically the everybody's aware of the ordinance that we have governing ourselves. So, if there are any changes that you'd like to recommend to that, you certainly can do that at this point. Um,

and that is your your ordinance, your current or is in your agenda if you or we could even pull it up there. Go ahead and pull it up if you

would it make sense to adjust the ordinance to reflect the calendar or are we comfortable leaving it as is like it's it refers to committee of the whole dispersed throughout the court like can we just clean it up so it

we can clean that calendar that yeah exactly as opposed to the way it's written here. Um, I have a question just about um comments on either on non-aggenda items um just kind of some things that we tend we do tend to always override the 30 minutes. Do we want to keep that in place? Also signing up. We don't really have a stipulation that the person has to sign themsself up. So we have had instances in highly debated topics where someone has signed up like 10 people and then that takes like the entire 30 minutes and kind of we're not hearing maybe a balanced, you know, so just like do we want to maybe limit it to where you have to be here to sign yourself up? Do we also want to maybe look into could we do for and against? You know, like kind of so we can kind of hear from both sides on an issue. So, I know those are kind of some things that I've been thinking about a little bit over the past year.

I'll uh some thoughts on the for and against. I would highly recommend against asking people what their stance is on the sheet. I think there could be some pretty serious legal issues associated with that. I think if you want to stipulate anything, it would be first come first serve has been tested time and time again in the courts and that has completely been upheld. If you want to say it has to be you signing in, I think that would be the appropriate way to go. I mean, we do tend to override our 30 minutes, but like say if we limit it to 30 minutes and all 30 minutes of those are filled by people with one side of the issue, we're, you know, we're just not maybe hearing we're not hearing balance. We're not hearing both sides is my concern.

I would also ask that it be a resolution that everyone is comfortable upholding time and time again. Um, just for consistency sake. So if you do extend time to allow more people to speak that way you don't have to continually not continually because if you always did it that'd be one thing but when we're picking and choosing when to allow to extend the time that becomes my concern. What if we did like a just a thought 30 minutes with one with the possibility of one 30 minute extension or something like 30 minutes 30 minute just limit it so that it's not open-ended like going to be here for five hours but maybe we set some parameters for extensions. I'm also a little concerned about the online com like

yes I wonder if we need to stipulate that it we're taking in-person comments that are signed up only because we tend to get through the inperson and then it's like we're an hour in and so we're done. So if you've been online for the whole time you don't Yeah. I will say in it is a little in here it says public comment says those making public comment shall do so from the podium which would mean you're in person but we do take we have we do take so just some clarification and consistency I think I want to have been following that I guess I don't think no and honestly I just noticed it when I was reading through all it does say can be made virtually as well

it does where item six says they must be on the on the agenda it states you can make it on the actual agenda, but in this ordinance it does ordinate it just says this. So, we need to clean that up and make it consistent. I think they have a problem with cutting it off at 30 minutes only because I feel like we have a large group of people here that want to speak and they're sticking to their three minutes. I feel like they have a right to address city council and anytime I was in the legislature sometimes we were there long hours and hours hearing testimony. I don't think it's good with her if they're here. If they're here and if they sign themselves up. Yeah, I agree. I think I'm in agreement with that require they sign themselves in and and prohibit someone from signing in a whole group of people

and the only the address is important too like that is important if I will live in Benton tell you that if you read this we people that are on project it is specifically stated in here if it is an agenda it is it's a non-aggenda item at the end that it is that they should be a Bentonville resident but if it is an agenda item Yeah, they can be develop you have businesses and other So that's how it's written. How you guys have that currently written for public? I guess my only question would be how are we going to monitor monitor if you sign yourself in? How do how are we going to know who signs themselves in and who signs someone else?

They need the addresses on the signin sheet so you know they're a resident for a non-aggenda item. Um not sure how I mean I would like to think if we just tell people that that they would abide by that. We just haven't ever communicated that that's our same person signing in more. Yeah. Could they sign up maybe at Miller's desk or something? I mean, she's usually here two hours early. I mean, I'm I'm impressed how I think you could you could just put it in there and it's a little bit of a honor system. Honor system. Could we put it on the agenda notice that uh nonaggenda items for Bentonville residents only?

Yes. [clears throat] So, we do need to do some cleaning up between what the agenda says and the resolution because the agenda actually says Bentonville residents can make public comments and we do allow per the resolution for agenda items, non-residents and for non-aggend residents. So, we do need to do some cleaning up whether it be on the agenda. Um the agenda needs to mirror the resolution. Um so, we need to clean that up depending on what's decided here tonight. would hate to tell them when they get here that only if they're from Bentonville can they have speak on another agenda, but the published agenda does say Bentonville residents. Um, so it is the more conservative approach is what's on the agenda. It just does not mirror what the resolution states. Can we put the link to the policy on the agenda? That's a good idea.

Just to kind of get everybody expectation has other links on it, but it's a good idea. I mean, the best way to disappoint somebody is not know the expectation. And if they click on the link and they read more information, then they're gonna know. I would have to ask, but and we want to get all of what you want in here and then we we will have to write it, bring it back to you, and you guys will pass it. So, are we know that? Are we saying then that we're not going to limit comment on agenda items at all? Is that what you're saying that you do not want comment? I still think the three minute, right? I just don't I just don't like the idea of not allowing people to speak that have waited been here signed in waited and can't speak.

And is there I mean can can we prioritize Bentville residents to speak? I think I think either they should have relevant businesses here or have some direct relationship here. I don't think we need to hear people from other cities come in and tell us how to run our city. I'd be comfortable if they provided an address at signin that was either where they work or do business because I can think of any number of examples where business owners in Bentonville business they have a relevant yeah I think what we're trying to mitigate is well I live in St. Louis and I happen to be in town and I care about an issue on your agenda and I just wanted to come and make a comment. That's that's a national issue.

Yeah. Or a national issue. Exactly. So if we could maybe look at language that says something about live or do business in and are able to provide an address um or defer to Nick on the right. Is that for agenda items or it's more specific to be a work of nonaggenda? not for agenda items and the non-aggenda items are only I don't have any discomfort just that it would apply universally. I think it's very confusing that only a subset of folks are able to make comment in one period and another at different either live or work. Exactly. Anyone who I'd like to hear from anyone who lives or works in whether agenda or non-aggenda it just feels cleaner.

A great majority of the time we have had uh 30 minutes plenty of time. Yeah, there has been only a few instances in which we have extended to an hour and I only remember one time when we went past one hour. It was this summer uh a little more than one hour. If we have to be here, if you have to be here in person, it's going to it's going to mitigate some of that time.

Yes. But at the same time, I agree with Cindy in the sense of not stopping from listening to the citizens who have come to address us. So either we put uh a very very wide limit like an hour and a half or so or the possibility of extending the those 30 minutes two times for up to one and a half hours. So I just don't want if we're going to always move past it then it's like us doing variances. Let's just get rid of the thing that always causes the variance on it. Yeah. we just so I think what I

well and we also need to decide because we've done this and I've gotten some push back on this sometimes we let people go at the beginning in meeting some sometimes we make them wait to the end again there's inconsistency and so I think we need to figure that out I think we need to be consistent and not be giving special treatment to

people get upset I somewhat disagree a couple of examples when we've had folks come to give public comment and they've brought small children into chambers I think it's incred incredibly appropriate for us to allow them to not sit through a two or three hour meeting. I also think it's incredibly appropriate for us to encourage the civic participation of a full family. So, you know, if we want to explicitly say these are reasons why we might want someone to speak first, but it is a lot to ask a resident to sit through a full meeting and speak at the end. Um,

but that's only for non-aggenda items. So, it's not very common to get those. was not. Which is why I'm saying I think the eight of us have the capacity to discern whether it's an appropriate request to go at the beginning or not. There I can't think of a time when it was arbitrary. It was just like, "Oh, we want you to go first." There was sort of always an extenduating circumstance. Then are we encouraging people to bring their kids to

I would love people to bring their kids. Well, there have been times we've approved it and there's times that we haven't and it does seem actually quite arbitrary a lot of the time to me and I don't like I feel like we're applying we're picking picking winners and not you know not necessarily being fair if we say it's a we used to not have non-aggenda item comments at all. I'm glad we do now. But I I think it needs to be applied fairly. Anyone that wants to come at the end of a meeting can speak at the end of a meeting. I personally don't think we should choose who we think arbitrarily deserves to not have to wait till the end of the meeting. So we are more in the line of uh removing the limit. Yes,

it is good because sometimes I'm thinking that the first item consumes the 30 minutes and then the next items do not have any time for public input. So it's 30 minutes per item, right? Yeah, it's always been 30 minutes. 30 minutes per item. 30 minutes 30 minutes public comment is not agenda. It is not items for that's that they always tell us you you guys always let it go let it they do tell you at 30 minutes and then y'all make I think what I've heard is it up and say we're not going to put a time limit. I think what I've heard is we don't want the 30 minute time limit. So we'll take that out. We want it to be Bentonville residents or those working in Bentonville. Have a connection here. Absolutely.

Business or work. Okay. So they can work in Bentonville and still have I mean the spirit of it is that like they need to be invested in the community somehow. Yes. And we can there's a big difference between working in residential or work something of that general residential business address and then they must speak from the podium in person. Is that what we're saying? Yes. Yes. That's what the ordinance says now. So, so we will not take combo online anymore. Is that what you're saying? We're going to have unlimited time for me. I need I think they need to take the time to come here and we'll give them all the time they want. They can listen online like we can online. I'm just saying we can't vote online. Okay. Still the threeminut time limit.

Yes. Three minute time limit. Is there anything else that anybody feels passionate about? I sign in themselves. Sign in yourself. have to be present to sign in and you must be yeah first come first serve sign your own you have to sign your own self in nobody else um every move to the end the non-aggenda items that's already in there is it appropriate to ask people to write legibly I feel like about 5050 we can't read their writing like I will say that is a challenge just use an iPad sign in and then you'd be able to read everything we're about to repurpose about

maybe eight iPads when we get prefer that mayor can't read. Like I'm being quite serious. Let me work on that. Seriously, like I actually would prefer that because then I would definitely be able to I will see if I can come up with you could save it. Yeah, because we do have people that go I live at um 121 Main Street and I assumed it was Bentonville and I live back in Lux and it was not Bentonville, you know. So I need secret address city maybe something to say I want to be I think the kiosk that's a great idea to sign people in then you can really

let me see if we can work on that I can't promise we will have it by the next one but we'll work on it we're really busy but I think we can figure that one out. Did you? What were you guessing? Oh, no. I was saying like back when I very first started, I think we talked about doing some form of sign in that was digital similar to what you would see maybe at like this sounds silly, but like at church where you everybody gets like a name tag, but it also keeps them in the system so you know. So, if you have repeat offenders or the same person coming in, you would know like, oh, this person actually is from here. And then you can go back in and see who's from Rogers or other areas. But that was a whole conversation to Yeah, I don't know exactly. I think it just

I think at first the priority list was not but let me let me let me see if I can work on that. It would help me because I I do have I can't read. I like the digital sign in. It would be good to get their like contact like we could always just fill up Excel sheet up and then just have them type their name in and then verify with an ID. Let me let me see if we can work on that. And then also on the agenda, it might be helpful to put that we need them to sign up prior to the meeting start like it doesn't say, you know, sign up before six o'clock or whatever. It was just more details. Start of the meeting and then give a link to the agenda or the policy. Yeah, the policy is a good idea.

I think so. Yeah, we more detail. All right. Anything else on that? I do like we can revisit it when it comes. I think planning commission I've listened to a lot of them. One thing they do really good is um keep from repetitive comments and I don't know how you state that but like if all 15 people like they don't really allow people to say traffic 15 times like you know like there and I don't know I just feel like we would just remind people to say if they if your point has already been made or someone has already said what you're going to say please you know say something different.

Yeah. How do you do it at 10 years or so? To your point, they have to say something at like the flip side to that support. All of our residents deserve to be heard. Even if they're restating something, this is a government body. I just I I don't like it. I don't want to put language in that says you have to say something new. If you have an opinion, I want to hear it and and you have a right to provide it from the podium. So, I I understand why we'd not like to be here all night, but we're we're rarely here that late. So, I just it's not a problem really. I would say that that's also not a contentneutral rule because you are restricting what someone can or cannot say. Um, which would be constitution. We really haven't done that before, have we? We haven't ever done that.

We asked you as we don't actually on big topics, but I would be concerned about saying you can't say what you want to say about that matter because that's already you tell them they can't say you just remind them just in senator if this has already been said. Are you in favor of it or just as far as the rules go? I wouldn't make it repeat something someone's already said. We don't have that rule currently. Well, we've suggested it before, but it's not really a rule. Anything else?

I would like to remind a few months ago, we had discussed um how developers and representative developers could and should be treated from city council members because they kept getting called up and it was being counted as public time. And I understand we're getting rid of the time limit, but I would also request that something be added to the resolution if you all would be okay with it. That at council's discretion, a developer, developer representative may be called up to be asked questions by the council members and that is not public comment. Um, but wouldn't that be on an agenda item? Usually, aren't those? It would be. Yes. Agenda items. And I think that's I think we've done that. Well, we've had cases where the person trying to explain the project and answer questions were limited to the three minutes and they couldn't answer all the questions.

Different a lot of times when you when we need to ask questions of someone, it's different than just a agenda. When you're bringing the agenda item or you're somebody if you're bringing the agenda item and directly involved versus an opinion on that, you need to be able to explain and we need to be able to maybe ask questions. So, I thank you for bringing that back up. I remember the last time that happened and we especially we're linking it. I don't want someone to be like, "Well, why are they being treated differently?" The rules, they were called at your discretion. This is that is a Q&A. That's not a public comment. Um, I would just throw that back out there to remind y'all that we had had that conversation a few months prior. So, we need to add something to the resolution to that effect. I would propose it. You and I witness.

I agree. And I I feel like you kind of know what we need to add or what we legally can add. Yep. I can read Bonnie and David to present it to y'all at the next council meeting. The difference to me is when council's asking for the information rather than getting in a back and forth and we're explaining a situation. I don't think that needs to be done in chambers. We don't want to do the back and forth, but when we need information is perfectly reasonable for us to ask questions and get answers.

But I think the clarifier is we can't ask questions during public comment. Well, we can change something from being public comment like because if we ask questions during public comment, but we don't it's it's an inconsistent thing, right? But the way it actually reads in here is it says council members should not ask questions for those making public comments without seeking permission from the chair. So you that's how it's currently written in here is you ask if the cheer if you can ask a question maybe we can just expand. If you want us to if those questions are asked that does not count that Q&A does not count against public comment.

Perhaps it's as simple as council can ask questions of staff and developers representatives but it's not limited to developers. It happened with the waste management contract. It happened with OT when presenting. It happened when there's a number of instances. I actually think the way this works if you ask if you ask your chair say you have a question ask chair that you'd like to ask question that's a that I think works doesn't it and with waste management that was a representative on the agenda item um so you were asking cards who was the the recommended vendor at that time you were engaging with cards who would have been the agenda item representative essentially and staff

but no if you feel we brought someone up from the audience to ask questions after they had spoken for three minutes. So, it just it it is a point of inconsistency and if we're trying to address the points of inconsistency, I'll defer to you Nick to write language, but we don't have a consistent process. The resolution as it reads today is I think it's something like you should not expect a Q&A, it's not a time for Q&A or something like that, but we can kind of clean that up and bring it to you all to review at the next That was mostly for the public comment rather than agenda items. agenda items. We need to have the information. Yes, we will clarify that. Yeah.

Yeah. I would if you need to ask questions from the person presenting something on the agenda that's that has facts that are needed then I think they have the right to be able to share those ask questions of those without it being part of a party to the item like it could be an engineer it could be the developer representative somebody who's related to

so my my only other request related to the idea that folks have to physically be in chambers to provide comment and can't be on Zoom is then can we please be a little more um inclusive and intentional about the parking situation for city hall for residents. I'm not talking about for us because we know in advance it's going to be hard. But if you're just coming to give comment and you're having to deal with what goes on at the time of day that council is occurring. So can we talk to our neighbors? Can we talk to the bank specifically who doesn't operate after hours and look for where folks can be directed to parked? Can we also try to clear the lot here for council meetings if possible and when possible? It's just it's not we can't do both things, right? Come downtown and make a comment. You can't do it online, but also park four blocks away and go

tonight. Yeah. Two different cars walked over to the crearyy. They parked in ours and went to the So now we're getting their overflow. Yeah. Because there's no exact solution. But if if we're going to put that rule in place, if we can just do a little more than we're doing right now to try. Yeah. To try to help folks be able to access it. Aubrey, tell you where to always coming in. You know, maybe we can not with you found maybe we could explore. uh couple months ago I talked about the parking in the parking lot and we have we have several vehicles that are that are left overnight every night and also those work vehicles are parked here as well during the day

and so I would like to explore other options for maybe parking at station one and having them go there two nights a month and and uh but in general it would free up when you have those cars parked here except for what's coming and going and you have the personal vehicles parked here. It's almost 30 spaces every day. And when we have ample parking at station one for a large breath of that, you could drive your personal park there and then drive your individual car here and it would save half of the parking spots. So, it's just I'd like to explore maybe how we can manage some of the

I had a meeting here at 8:30 a.m. yesterday and there were only two open parking spots at 8:30 a.m. So, that means that's anyone that needed to come here and do city business like there's not spots in our lot. Like, it's a this is kind of a long-term problem, but like we can we can we can talk to people and I don't I mean, yeah, the reality is yeah, there's businesses around us. people are it's a public parking space so we can certainly do some asking and have a judge but I don't know if we can probably not something you write into your or for but doesn't our say they can park here after five or I think it says it's city business until five oh okay because I know I mean

we all know that most it's just really it's hard to unless we have a parking monitor out there that's going to go run tags and everything it's kind hard to do that. Well, maybe we can solve some of the cars that we can. Let me see what conversations we can have.

If we could have those conversations, I I would just ask that we keep the option of digital public comment available. It just again, the question is, do we want to hear from residents or not? And if we want to hear from residents and we've just walked through how hard it is to physically get here to make those comments. You know, we could limit the time available for online comments, but I don't find it disruptive. and we're not able to vote online anymore, but we decide whether folks can comment online. We've already said they have to wait till the end of the meeting. I I think it's just another way that we can include residents in the conversations that we're having here. But if you guys want to limit it, it's fine. It just it's a lot of barriers we're creating for our residents to come and give us their feedback.

There may be some uh citizens who have difficulty coming here for whatever reason and it is this the electronic system is a good option. So we should not limit that. If if there are people coming, they have a a genuine business for within the city, then they should be able to speak. I think you make sure you have the parking for people or make we make arrangements for them. Um, we're not able to do business online anymore.

And I think if we extend it to unlimited discussions at the podium, uh, if somebody wants to let us know they're having difficulty either they can't because of their handicap, then we can do an exception for that. But I don't I don't want it open to anybody and everybody. I would like it to open only for necessity or the individual. be fine with that if we just put a provision that says with permission granted by whoever you want to grant it Nick that digital comment will be available for like this reason or that so I can say here's my hardship I can't get childare I can't more than happy to do that disable I just want some way to include folks who articulate that I can't I can't come but I would share my

I'll have to let somebody know ahead of time that they would speak just like signing in they can't wait Yes ma'am during the meeting If we from the council are out of town, we can still participate without being able to vote. So in the same manner, citizens who cannot come for whatever reason, who have a justifiable reason, they should be able to participate. Well, and they can also send in their a comment to be That's right. They can do comments anytime they want. So maybe it's like we encou we request you speak in person but we are able to accommodate comments in writing to this whatever or if you need special accommodation to give comment online I think

I don't think we're going to be like please provide four forms of but we just encourage people to be in person I think that's it's better for everybody we can read their body language better and it's I think you'll end up having you'll you'll have a lot of if it's about managing it, right? And that's the only thing from a city standpoint and being fair everybody and if we miss somebody's request and an email to speak. So I just

we're getting pretty complicated with it. Um but I think it comes back to what is the goal and as city council our goal is to make it as easy as possible for as many of the residents as possible I think to engage with all of us and it's hard right now. So, I'm just if we can't create a system for it, then let's not do it. But we could use we've used Google forms when we had folks sign up the way we did public comment during COVID period online. We could follow that same process. You could check a little box. Here's my reason. Um, happy to work with Michael to help make sure we have the form. I'm not trying to over complicate it. I'm actually trying to simplify it for residents to be able to engage with council.

And I like getting their comments also. I do like submit comments in writing, but I do think comments submitted in writing is different than I sent an email. Like there there is a difference. That's why folks want to be it's different than an email that this gets copied and pasted over and over and there has to be a reasonable timeline for that. So we and it's got to come into an email certain email, but we make sure you get all we get it all to you. That's the only thing. It's it becomes a little bit of a management. I know it doesn't but it becomes a little bit of a management piece on our end. So you you got to give them a exact timeline of when they'd have to have that in so we can get them distributed to you guys. And so I

you have to give them you know what I'm saying? I I feel like it' be easier for us if you guys just allow online comments than if we do all that on the back end. To be perfectly honest with you, we need limited my opinion on online. So, well, it might if we do allow online comments, it might be good to alternate between in person and online. I feel like when we've had online people waiting and waiting for two hours, then by the time we get to online, it's like they've either hung up or or they're exhausted. So, how are you going to time click that? But I don't know. It doesn't seem like they should be

Can you question since we prefer people to come? and you have everybody that's in person speak and then you go to the which was I mean that's just a and they just need to or they can send in their chronic ahead of time. Does that make sense? We do it now. That's kind of how we do it now, right? Yeah. So we could add on the that priority is given to in person just to set expectation. It may be you would like waiting a while. This is Bonnie. I am so sorry to interrupt.

Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, but that that is actually not how we do it now. We turned the CC comments email off several months ago because with the new FOYA law coming out, people who were emailing comments to the CC comments, that wasn't actually public comment because the public wasn't seeing it. So, if we want to turn something back on where the public can send comments via email, we need to do so we we I sorry, my suggestion would be that we put a time limit on that that they have to have their comments in by a certain time so that we can include those comments in the agenda or make them somehow publicly available so they are actually public comment.

Does the agenda software, Bonnie, does it allow for interaction in any way? Like could a member of the public comment online on the agenda? Like is there it does not. Okay. And I'll double check, but I don't think it does. But what you can do is you can your constituent can contact you as their city council and send their comments to them and then you can you can read their comments. So that's a way that but we did. Yes, we did. And it was a bit of a nightmare trying to because people would send in comments right before the meeting. We were trying to make sure y'all had them. So that's

I mean during some some topics we will get 35 emails. We're not going to sit here and read every single email. That's what I think you you encourage them to come speak in person. If you have a constituent they cannot come in person then I think they could email you you their comage and you could read this but that would make sense to me. I mean understand what you're saying. I just want to understand so I'm not getting if they're emailing one person and trying to copy the other council members. I'm not getting that anymore. So they they would have to email

comments distro list and I believe that has an automatic reply now that points them to you individuals with the word directly. So they have to email me directly not make me a copy of other one email. No they could copy all of y'all individually. There's just not one district list for public comments anymore. Does that make sense? There used to be on the agenda it would actually send one email that we go that they go to to send all of us an email. Yeah. They would have to individually comp which was on the agenda them to us.

Yeah. You're asking is there a distribution list that says city council at bentonville arg what's on the agenda now we because we turned that off with two months I think warning to the residents and then now it has an automatic reply so used to I think it was like cc.com commentsviller.com okay and that was on the agenda if you want to submit public comments send it to this email address and it came to all of us

yes that was turned off and now there's an automatic reply. I don't know if there still is, but for several months, there was an automatic reply that said that this is no longer monitored. Here is your city council members. Here's their email address, and here's the ward map. So, if they want to email you, they can email you. If they want to email all eight of you, they can individually type in all eight of your email addresses instead of clicking one one link and emails. And that was is that what everybody wants? It was because of the FOYA law because it so they can copy all of they can copy all of us the same way this link does but we can't do the link. We can't do Bill wanted to stop calling it Huh.

I'm so sorry Bill I hate that I'm virtual tonight. Um the purpose of it was not because of their communication with you. It was because of it being called public comment and the new foyer restrictions around how public comment can work. So, if we want to create a city council email where people can email city council members, but if it wants to be public comment, it needs to happen in a way that's recorded so that it's foyable and compliant with that law. I would just seems

Yeah. I think what we're saying I think the consensus is we should make it easy and have city council bentonville.com or whatever and it goes to everybody just like if they email mayor's staff or whatever you might have as a distribution list. There's no reason we can't do that, right? Just don't call it open comment. Okay. Yeah. No, it's just an email. It's an email link. That's what I was referring to. Yes, you're right, Chris. That would be absolutely perfect. or they can email us individually or they can email three of us or they can call us. I'd like to I like the link to if they want to just

Okay. Anything else? So, we're going to allow online public comment. We're not limiting the time. We're encouraging people to come in person. First come, first come to be heard first. Is there anything else? We were going to put the agenda the policy on the We were going to put the policy on the link on the agenda. I want my own. And so this will come back to us in two weeks. We'll review the ordinance. If we have changes, we can again make them then or we can approve it.

Right. Going once, twice. So all right. Uh what else do we need to do? Um G do we need to formally elect a chairperson or do we do that? That is done. So it's a that is a vote. So I was told you should not do that in committee of poll if I'm reminding Bonnie. Yeah, we don't vote in committee.

We should do that after we open the meeting. Okay. So then if there's Bill, you had a couple items. You want to talk about those? Um I so next agenda uh I don't want to go into it this evening but the the discussion came up here in our last conversation about the current and there was just what can we do with them what should we keep them as they are could we suspend them for a period of time do we get rid of them so I would like to put on the agenda for next meeting for the discussion to see what the choices could be and and on the agenda would be a discussion to suspend the current impact fees for a certain period of time, revoke them, or continue it as is. And we have an open discussion about that. And I think it's worthwhile to have that conversation. And uh I'd like to place that on the agenda on next next meeting agenda.

I can get any objection to that or any other comments on that on committee as a whole for discussion. Is that what you want? I would like to have it on an agenda item to approve, suspend, or revoke. I think my preference would be to have it on a committee of the whole first. Well, we can visit about it, right? Yeah. And then like maybe the next meeting because Yeah. I don't want it to move to a vote that night. Like if it's in the It's gonna be difficult. I kind of hear what Holly saying. It may be difficult if it's like multiple choice suspend vogue. whatever. But if we could all come to a consensus, we could either play that or we could the the because of the

vote it up or down the most the more re what's about to happen with the new fees. Uh it's it's there's a lot of conversations about whether things can move forward or not. And so it time is sensitive if we're going to have a conversation about it. So, uh, I'd be more than happy to any way we want to have the conversation. If you can move to the agenda for approval, if we can come to an understanding, that would be great. If not, we just move it to the next agenda. Can we add reduce as one of the multiple choice amend? Yeah. Either way, reduce like a temporary reduction maybe on the table.

So, the is it correct that the new sewer fee goes into effect on the 22nd? Is that correct? So, we'll meet again on the 27th, which will be a few days after that. Suppose that's as soon as we can do it. But well, I didn't want to surprise and try to y'all we all go through it this evening. I want everybody to think about it. We had a lot of discussion at the last meeting and I didn't want to take up the entire evening on that discussion, but I you're you really think about that and and what the where where people are that are now have a fee that they didn't expect 45 days ago.

When's the next developer forum? because I think we actually need to have a discussion with the development community to see if there are other agree to see if there are ways that we can save them money as the city in with nothing to do with the back fees. You know, I I I've heard some ideas from some people that I think may have some when develop the spring developers form is scheduled for Friday, April the 10th. That looks well. Is that something that we can we set the agenda for that or get still have questions about that different agenda on that besides the typical agenda? Can we actually talk set the agenda for items?

Um the developers forum. Yeah. Yes. So that's actually Yeah. I'd be happy to any agenda items, discussion things that city council planning commission would like for us to discuss broadly with the with the development community. I think we could we could talk through those um spring and fall developers forum this year because we're hoping to wrap up plan Bville before then which has been the focus the last two years at these developers forum. I think it allows us to get back to a little bit more um open discussion like what we had in the past.

And then Tyler if I've already heard some things from developers that I think is that just would be appropriate to talk to you about. Yeah. And then yep, that is uh um as of what Monday for if you're not aware um planning team, you know, historically we've always kind of handled things up until uh when we get to planning commission. As of Monday, we're now uh coordinating the scheduling of pre-constructions, final inspections as well. So we're we're taking a more active role throughout the process now. So great. Thank you.

Yep. So, anything you're hearing, even if it's not me who has the answer, my team can triage it and get the right people in the room. For the January 27th committee of the whole, can we add an update on the city's AI policies and current approach to how we're leveraging AI in the city? I'm sorry, I was That's okay. Can we just add an an update on our current AI policies and ways that we are approaching the use of AI as a city for I'll defer to you mayor ideally the 27th but if you'd like to push it into February that's fine but please not pass the last meeting in February.

Guyatri I don't know if Dennis is there or not but I know that he has put together [laughter] sorry there's another Dennis in the audience. I'm so sorry. It Dennis. Sorry, not Dennis Bird. Sorry. I know he's put together uses AI all he's our AI Dennis. AI.

I know that Dennis has put together an interim policy because legal has reviewed it. He was going to present it at the next AI internal staff meeting. Um I'm not I just don't remember off the top of my head when that is. Um, but I know that he's got something ready, so we should be able to give that to council um for review preliminarily. Anything else, Bill?

Yes. Uh, the next thing is there I'm getting a lot of calls and and I I just maybe there needs to be some clarification. Uh, I know that the fees were supposed to be paid at precon. We had that long discussion of whether you pay it at precon or you pay it at occupancy. Most people, if you if you talk in general to the community out there, they thought if you had gotten through large-scale development and you were approved by the body that you were approved prior to this ordinance going into effect, that you didn't have to pay the fees. That's not the case that I'm hearing today. that if you haven't made it to precon, which is not a defined time frame, if you haven't made it to precon, you have to pay the capacity fees. And what I know I heard in the meetings were for me and what was being talked, hey, as long as you've got large scale development approval, you're good to go. You're not going to have to pay the capacity fees. Well, two calls today trying to hurry up and rush to get to precon because it is no. if you haven't made it to precon yet and then you have to pay the fees. And so there's a lot of misunderstanding out there and people are panicking and it's a big deal when you think about 60 days ago this wasn't a thing and your projects are already approved and you funding is already done and all of a sudden even though you've got approval you now have to pay the fees and getting to precon is not a defined time frame because there's a lot of factors in there some subjective some not and it's a difficult process. So some of those getting to precon could take months and so you could have had approval way back before we even So I just trying to understand I thought we were going to grandfather those that have gotten large scale development

approval but people are rushing around trying to get a precon which there's no way it's going to happen. I I don't Tyler do you want to come speak and uh Preston's online too to answer some of that nuance. Um, I will speak though for water sewer team. I spoke with them earlier today. I know that they are aware of and tracking every project that is in that limbo stage you're talking about. Has planning commission approval, hasn't gone to precon yet, and they're actively working with people to try to get them to precon prior to that date on the 22nd.

Not into the current ways that we treat precon. And I appreciate you running into a one-stop mark which is going to help them. There's no way you're going to take 13 16 projects whatever it is and get them to precon with our current processes by the 22nd. You're going to have to skip a bunch of things and I don't think it's fair to them. I I just I don't think this we have grandfathered every time we've done this before. We have grandfathered things that were already approved. Um,

but I I just I wanted to bring it up because I got so many calls today that this just the understanding was different and they're trying to figure out there's no way I can get to pre-com and everybody we had a lot of missing people on corporate side and during the holidays. So all of a sudden, how does staff even cram this in? Even if you add every day to a pre-com process, how are you going to get all that done? I just don't think it's possible. So listen, this this whole thing has been a really a lot to one specific industry that's carrying a lot of burden and this wasn't expected and we're in discussions on still secondary lines that they're going to have to pay for. They don't know that predictability yet. So there's a lot of things that are still out there. This was just one more thing that they they all of a sudden realized, wow, I thought I was done and safe from these and there's no funding for it. So, I just at least now those that are entering the system knows they're coming and they can plan for them and finance for them, but those that already finished the process, I I I don't So, I just wanted to bring it up because I we don't I heard people that I haven't heard today that couldn't even come up with words to to explain how fearful they are right now. I mean, if you if you knew that you were about to put out your final deal and you were a million short, I mean, that's catastrophic or 500 or or whatever it is. So, I mean, we're this is an emer 30 days, it's done. Um, listen, I'm appealing to to if this was your industry or anything that you ever did and you were surprised by something like this and you've been working on your project for years, your financing is fixed and done and all of a sudden somebody

our rules have dictated that now tomorrow you're going to have to pay this even though you've already been approved by the governing body. It doesn't smell right to me or feel right to me and I think it it should be it should be considered and I'd like you all to consider that and see if there is choices for this. If not, I understand but there's a lot of confusion today appropriate. I think we need to look at the project at the and I don't know but the projects are all have they all would have had to do downstream. Is that correct? Oh, they would either be I know we have them split up by sewer basin and Preston I think can speak more accurately to that.

Yeah. So, can you all hear me? Yes. So, we did, you know, we also had this concern and so our staff has, you know, produced this list of projects that have been through planning commission but have not had a pre-construction meeting. And just so everybody's clear, the ordinance that we have approved does not give us the ability to wave any fees based on that situation. The fees in the ordinance was developed and written in a manner that at the time of scheduling a pre-construction meeting after the ordinance takes effect, they would have to pay the wastewater development fee. There isn't any verbiage in that that allows us to go away from that.

But we have been reaching out to developments. We have been actively trying to encourage and to help and to assist all those that are close or that can get to a pre-construction meeting by the deadline get to the deadline and so or get to a pre-construction meeting because we knew this would be a concern. Uh the projects that are there that have been through planning commission that could have a pre-construction meeting have already been evaluated and analyzed that their wastewater flow would be accommodated by our existing sewer system. So that's the list of I think it's 13 or 14 developments that that are in the works currently. And so we as staff and you know I think a lot of folks have seen the emails have worked countless hours trying to accommodate developments to get them to that point and we will continue to do that for any development that's actively trying to get to that point because we know it is a concern. and we know it is an issue and so that's our commitment is that we will continue to work with them try to meet the you know the requirements you know ADH can be a big hurdle but we have the delegated ADH review if there's less than 2,000 ft of public infrastructure being installed on a large scale we do that ADH uh review inhouse so if we get comments satisfied designs complete we have an internal you know staff city engineer that reviews those and then produces that ADHD that delegated ADH approval letter. So that also helps that process and so we are actively doing everything we can based on this current situation that Bill's bringing up because we knew you know we had the concern too and so that's why Joey and his team and Bo were trying to develop and and sending emails and reaching out to those developments. I think it was like late like last week. So and they're trying to do everything they can. I know Tracy's getting calls trying to schedule precons. I know the

schedule's filling up, so we're doing everything that we can to accommodate that situation.

Preston, I appreciate that. I And I have to admit when I when I read the ordinance, I was concerned about the payment time and I didn't realize that there wasn't a grandfather in of anybody that reached a certain point. we were focusing on the cost to the developer uh and the home ultimate homeowners because we're paying it upfront and carrying that cost. So none of the discussion was that oh even though you've got largecale development because we're placing the payment at precon if you haven't hit that precon you're paying it. So I I wasn't aware of that myself and I don't think some people were and

no we need to go through the projects. I know I've personally been working with developments that knew the deadline and we are we are doing everything to get in there. So I do think everybody I've dealt with that was communicated to but I don't know. So we need to have some we can always amend the ordinance we need to go. Another thing I don't think we can't I don't I don't know but another thing we need to keep in mind

is that the development fee and the development and the timing of the development fee was also meet the requirements of the revenue bond and so there's that piece of it also so you know we need to be careful on what we're going to do on you know pushing or pausing any of those development fees because you know the number of those added erus were used as to a way to create the financial model in order to get the revenue bond, you know, presented to the city. So, please, can I ask you a question? I I understand all that. Sure.

I I only want to speak from personal experience, not throw in third parties, but the preconstruction process from planning to precon is somewhat of a subjective time frame. Uh it's not a defined time frame. There's people that have been in precon quite a while, isn't there? So there are developments and you're right there's not a predefined schedule from planning commission to a pre-construction meeting because we don't know the timing based on the complexity of the size of the project or the urgency based on the developer and the consultant that's designing that you know so there are situations where you know there's comments and track it and there's a request for you know maybe a traffic study maybe it's a a drainage plan maybe it's an electrical layout. You know, a lot of those things are those requests are out there for several weeks. And so, we don't have that, you know, specific time frame from planning commission to pre-construction meeting because they're all different. And you know this, I'm not telling you anything.

Yes. And there are there are there are developers that were have been in a precon well before this came up for a vote. Waiting on a precon. Is that No, I don't know. Anybody's waiting on a precon based on having all the everything satisfied because I know there's still times and dates available. No, but they've been in the process of trying to get to precon and they've been past planning for longer than we've had this ordinance in review.

If they haven't been scheduled a pre-construction meeting is because they haven't met the requirements by each department to be approved for a pre-construction meeting. And during these pre-construction meetings when we're trying to get a precon, there is some discrepancy on what preliminary plans mean and other things that seem to be some causing some delays in the PCON. Listen, I I can go through all Yeah, but are you specifically talking to building plans or civil site plans? Well, because civil sight plans are pretty

since since I I came in and had the discussion of what a preliminary plan really means. You've had several of those conversations since besides myself. And so if if you don't know really what is being demanded, then it causes delays. It's not always on the developer side. And so, listen, I'll leave this. I don't need to get in this anymore. I just I think it's a good conversation, though. But there's also, you know, as you know, there's a specific checklist for pre that you have to meet these items on this checklist in order to qualify for a pre-construction meeting. Yes. But your hurdles are higher than the checklist as you know,

very intentional and tried to been very consistent on the requirements for a pre-construction meeting that Tracy does a very good job making sure everybody understands and knows those things that have have been satisfied and those things that have not. and she works really really hard to make sure everybody's, you know, knows that. If you can, if you can define to me, even at one of your meetings recently, what preliminary plans mean so you can check it off in your box? You let me know cuz y'all couldn't let me know when I did a pre-con. So, are you talking and I'm I'm I'm confused. It's the checklist for the preliminary building plans approval. Is that what you're talking about, Bill? It's the building plans.

Nope. It's preliminary plans is the way it reads. Nobody knows why it's required or what is required and it drags on because it then you say well do you want building permit plans and it draist it's all about there's a lot of projects that have been longer than we've been discussing this that are being caught off guard and have to pay this fee. They also have to extend the lines if they're short already. So they still have that on their books and planned on but now they have this and they weren't expecting it. It's a legitimate item that has been brought up to me more than once and I just wanted to share if y'all haven't heard this. I wanted to share this with y'all.

I have heard the the confusion around the preliminary building plan but not a preliminary site civil plan. That's why I was asking if you're hearing about civil site preliminary or building preliminary plans. I'm just talking about there's issues in the process whether it's preliminary plan or so there's there's things that have caused the process to go an extended period of time possibly more than people have even known about this fee or when it's actually published. Yeah, I understand. And so that's why we're working really hard with all those entities to try to get them to that finish line. Yep.

I have a question regarding the language of the ordinance. I don't have it in front of me. Uh when we said they had 30 days before it takes effect, right? Did we anywhere in there say you have 30 days to schedule your precon meeting or anything of that nature? And were you a did you have the capacity to take and schedule any of those meetings for whoever applied for them within those 30 days? Well, over all the holidays. Oh yeah, we passed it. Then we all went on holiday including many of many here. three weeks was uneventful. I think we can commit that if these 13 or 14 projects get meet all the requirements for a pre-construction meeting, we'll fit them in.

I understand, President. I'm just concerned about those that have passed that were taking their time going through the process that this is a complete surprise and there's no way they're going to get with you full up on the 13 going to get to precon by the 22nd. And it's they're already passed. I just don't there's not they're not going to make it. And yeah, and I hope I hope I hope you're wrong, but we're going to do everything we can to try to make that not a correct statement. So, we're going to do what we can. Well, then I'll send you your project number when I'm done here. We'll just be one of them, but it's not limited to all the phone calls I had today, and they don't know what to do. So,

yep. Yep. Please send us the information. We can't respond to anything we don't know about. I don't know if I can share really the the the what this can do to people right now in the immediate future. Okay. Uh the last thing I had is I would like to review and I talked to I talked to Tyler about that uh at the next meeting or but in between now and then I'd like to review the early build program and see if we can't revise that process slightly to make it actually not that it's not working but maybe we can facilitate a better process for that to where it can do some good. Yep. Absolutely. Thank you. Yep. That's all I had. T

I don't know if we're going to do anything about it. Anything? Any other comment? Okay, we have one more item. Uh, Tiger and Northwest G Street drainage options. So, I I So, is anybody want to I guess nobody wants to talk about whether we should try to do a grandfather amend or we're just saying we can't amend that at all. I think I don't I think that's a legal question. My understanding is

why don't why don't can we have recommendations brought back at the meeting on the 27th like option A option B option C because I think what's challenging and Bill I really appreciate you raising it is that this there's no solutions for it so if we could just get a few options what we could do um I would support making an amendment to grandfather in those projects because it is confusing and it is unfair Preston I heard you about the financial implications of that but I think there's also what what our community is experiencing given that now any project that comes forward everybody knows that's the case um but the surprise element of it is really hard build to your point in planning I don't know what our options are I don't know what the implications of those options would be but if we could have them to not only discuss next meeting but potentially take action

a legal opinion that would be great that would be great thank you thank you right Northwest Tiger and G several months ago uh I think it was during the budget review process even so it's probably back before mid December. Uh there was a request made to do a look at the Tiger and G project in phases. Bill you had suggested some some pipe locations that would make good sense to be part of phase one. We approached Olsen about that. They've done some reviews and some budgets. They've come back. They've got information. I'm not going to try to interpret it. I'm going to let them get up and explain it. And they instead of me getting a question and sending it to them and coming back to the next meeting, we may actually be able to get through it all at once. So

I like that. I'm not exactly sure who's starting, but I'll let them introduce themselves as they come up. And don't forget to ask Dennis questions. Thank you for bringing it getting bringing it to this point. Lee's going to talk. I just wanted to say we narrowed down our slides to about 300 for [laughter]

We're gonna try to keep this short and informative. U my name is Lee Bashoner. I'm the group lead for water resources for Olsen in Arkansas. uh so oversee a lot of the drainage improvement projects and uh flooding concerns and those types of activities. I've got uh Becca Perez is one of our younger engineers with me as well. Uh just to kind of go through uh we were asked to kind of summarize what all we looked at. We know there were some various questions about could we peacemeal this um and we've got some highlevel uh answers u from looking at that just to provide information for y'all how y'all want to proceed. Uh, I will say if you do have specific questions for, you know, hard questions, I'm gonna default to. Uh, so, uh, if you Oh, sure. All right. So, I'm going to There we go. All right. I can figure out technology. I apologize. Long day. Um, so just a little bit. I think everybody knows where we're talking about. We're talking about Northwest Tiger Boulevard and G Street. Um, as a whole, this was a part of a 21 bond program project. Um, during heavy rain, uh, you get a lot of nuisance flooding, a lot of drainage issues. Uh, this is primarily simply due to either limited or undersized storm sewer or just no storm sewer at all. Um, you also get a lot of what I would call overland flooding. Uh basically when the rain hits the ground, it's going to follow its path of least resistance till it can get to a road, a drainage course of some sort and further downstream. Um and so from looking at that, we took the original project, they u city came to us with questions about could we split this apart and what would that look like? And so we looked at ultimately um two

options and then the third option is really the whole project as a whole. Uh so the first one is really looking at improvements to Tiger Boulevard. I think that was one of the questions was could we could an increased um covert opening through Tiger solve problems further up in the watershed. Uh that was going to consist of not only just putting a a larger uh structure under Tiger, but also doing some reorientation of the downstream outfall uh to better align it with the existing uh drainage uh canal instead of sending it straight out into uh the uh neighboring property which had some erosion. Um and so option two, we came back and we also looked at not only just the improvement at T uh Tiger, but also uh looked at a little bit of an improvement on Pal Terrace, which is the street to the south. Um through that area there's local drainage course uh that's more prominent I'll say with respect to topography existing grade. Um and then option three what we looked at was again it was the whole study as a whole. Uh that was the original scope that was uh submitted um some time ago. Um ultimately this is we we did a highlevel quick and dirty analysis. This was something uh the city has access to as far as the storm water uh downtown master plan uh the drainage. So, this particular graphic is for a 10% annual chance or equivalent to a 10-year storm, uh, is what we call it. Um, there's four different options across the screen. Uh, going from left to right, left is what it is right now with no current improvements. Uh, the one just to the right, option one, that is where we look at just Tiger

by itself. The third one is going to be the improvements at Tiger Plus. What we threw in at Pal Terrace was somewhat of a swale type design, something to get water uh from one side of the road to the other. And then the third option is, as you can see by the kind of hard to see, but the yellow line work, which is the drainage course going from Tiger all the way up um up G Street. um in this graph the darker the color the deeper the water levels. So ultimately what we saw is that well one if there are improvements that need to be made and they are peacemeal starting at the downstream end is is the ideal situation right you are working your way upstream so you're not creating a problem by doing improvements upstream and causing a problem down. So if you had to do a peace mill uh working from upstream to downstream would be the ideal option. Um ultimately with that said though simply putting an additional cover under tiger uh is not going to solve all the problems. Uh it's improvements you can see there um are pretty isolated to in and around uh in between tiger and palteras. Uh the

sorry can you yeah can you follow up doesn't seem like any change in my untrained there's not a lot there. So if you could maybe point that out where you're talking about I am not a drainage expert but I don't see any difference in the first three. So she might have to be the she's my pointer. Big was first and last.

So option one [laughter] uh so on the left you can see this is what it this is what it resembles today right no improvements. Option one which is where we're looking at strictly the increased capacity under Tiger. uh it does not make a huge difference upstream. What it does do is it does improve water surface elevation slightly in between Tiger and Palterrace in that general area. So sorry. So on option one, water would still very possibly get into some of the homes that we're already receiving complaints about.

Yes. By itself. Uh option two, which is the third sliver here. Um you can see there's a little bit of improvement, not a whole lot again, uh with respect uh to the area to the south, which is where some of the drainage improvements need to be focused, right? Um the third option, which is the full option, again, is going to see the most improvement. Um you see the depths tend to reduce. Uh some of the houses that are impacted aren't as impacted. Uh so some of the solutions there, one of the reason why we're seeing some of what we're seeing here is that when the rain falls, it falls on the ground and it either ponds up, puddles, goes to the next spot and moves itself downstream. Some of this is overland flow, right? This is just it's going to rain, it's going to pond. So, unless you're addressing it with, you know, swailes or other options in behind properties where you don't have access to now, keeping it off of everybody's property is is something to keep in mind. Uh particularly if we're looking at the bottom corner, right? That's the southern end of the drainage. That is uh long G. That's where the improvements start. We're still have to deal with all that water that's coming down to the street. That is not something that's included in the storm sewer because it would have to go back into people's property. So, um, ultimately the question of there's no one magic bullet to solve the problem, I guess, is what I'm saying. uh there's a combination of solutions

and there may be other options that are identified that can be looked at. Um and then this is it with what we would refer to as the 1% event or the 100red-year scenario. Uh at that point in time, a lot of the drainage systems are overwhelmed, right? We're talking about a substantial amount of rainfall. uh we're talking uh you know upwards of eight nine plus inches of rain over it. So um ultimately those are the three options that we looked at and that considered that had questions on back to the previous slide

100 or the sand either one. Okay. So all of the phase I mean we're talking about sheet flow in a lot of this versus what we can contain from the streets or or or where we're taking our pipes like across pile or but a lot of this you're saying because it is standard sheet flow and unless you do something with the yards you're not going to change ultimately any significant amount of their sheet flow across the yard because of either the flatness or there's no swell s or anything else. It's just going to still hover in that area and all four of them doesn't seem to resolve that to speak of.

There's going to be potent there's going to be possibilities that okay so whether or not that this project as a whole um I'll say morphs or includes localized swailes to maybe funnel water in between and around. That's pretty cute. Um you know those are possibilities to look at as well. Okay. So, is it is it reasonable to and I just I want you just yes or no. And I'm not trying to get you to I'm just saying if we did option two, which is how much difference it was on it's like what what was the difference in cost? 60,000.

Yeah. So, getting across PAL right there. Uh and you you've increased capacity. What's your idea of increasing the pass capacity under Tiger Boulevard? Double, triple, what is it? I mean, what are you using in this scenario in option one? Your pipe change or capacity change? I don't remember. I mean, are you putting a 4x6 box cover under there? Are you are you significantly increasing that that that movement or we we constricting it still? Sorry. To what? So, basically, we would be increasing what's there um to a 60inch pipe. And that's a tiger.

Yes. Okay. If you increase that to a box culbert, what would that do? Would it be significantly get that grained off a little faster and allow more capacity? Uh, I mean, it's possible. Okay. So, and if you got to PAL, what do you have across PAL? inch and pal is limited in just in the conditions surrounding. Yeah. In the elevation surrounding. So you'd have to do you'd have to be able to get the inlet in there. So you'd have to have some grading changes to be able to get that inlet and exit to work properly. Correct. So or put in some form of a I'll call it a low water,

lack of a better word, an inlet structure in the in the grading to allow that to drain off into this inlet. Uh but if you were able to swell that in front and behind, you can increase that pipe size possibly because that's the bathtub drain. So I I mayor and I I really appreciate this this look at this. If if the 60-in doesn't do it because I don't see the bathtub emptying much.

Yeah. under Tiger Boulevard, which you think if you're deep enough because the other side's pretty deep and if you're realign into the channel basin, you've got eight feet, 10 feet to deal with. So, you're not limited on what you can do there. So, I would hate to withdraw the capac hold back the any capacity because from there you're pretty free flowing downhill. It's pretty established channel if I'm not mistaken. Um, I would like to since I don't see except for the fourth, which you didn't change the pipe, what did you do differently under the pipe and tiger on the fourth one versus the previous two?

Nothing. The the thing that's really catching it is it's catching some of the water upstream and it's sending it down the pipe network, the subsurface drainage network that's being put in because you brought the inlet structures, but that's only that's street water. Correct. You're not moving any of the sheet flow. That's why it still gathers around all the houses. Okay. Right. So, we're we're basically taking water from certain spots, putting it underground, draining it out. You're bringing it around down Tiger instead of collecting in that basin. So, but there is options to through swells to try to help drain that in block

center block and get it across pow. Yeah, there's options, but there may be easement issues or correct those kind of things. Well, then we can go to the homeowners and say the only way we can fix this if you want is we have to put a swell back here. You either have we have to have the easement from you or we we don't. I think what this design does is keeps you in here right away. I don't know how you're going to change. The sheet flow doesn't really change in that inner inside block there to speak of. On options one and options two, we spend half a million dollars and we get nothing. But we get halfway there.

We get nothing. In in my opinion, the three the first three diagrams are essentially the same. We don't have money for any of them right now. So, if we don't get started on a peace mill, at least we're heading down the right direction. What I'm saying is that even if we put half a million dollars today on those option one and option two, even if it is a partial a conducive to the full uh solution, those half a million dollars is not going to represent me much benefit to the citizens of that area to the president.

It does because when you're ultimately finished with this total project, you're already halfway down it and you're not postponing it for a year. How much money do we have in the 21 bond funds left to do this project?

Bill, let let me complete my comment. So, in my opinion, those options one and options two by themselves are irrelevant, are nothing. Uh option three provides a little benefit, but even then it's incomplete. There there is quite a significant difference between nothing and option three, but at a cost of a million dollars. I'm I'm asking [clears throat] at this moment, what will it be a solution that will dramatically improve the conditions on the ground over there for those residents?

So, so two, one thing I want to point out is we do have money in the budget. There was general fund money set aside for drainage projects. It was, I believe, $1.5 million. So, that was something that could be is earmarked for this. That wasn't isn't bond money. It is general fund money. We don't have any more of the bond 21 bond funds for this project. No. Okay. It was earmarked for

one thing I wanted to point out because you Holly I believe had mentioned houses that are getting water in them. I am only aware of one house that actually got water in it and that is referred to as the banana house. I don't know if they're here but it's the just to point it out. this home. And if you look, there's not much change in these images because this water is still there. But if you get to this image, you're starting to see dry land around some sides of that house. So, there is an improvement made in the storms for the one home that I'm aware of that is flooding. We had a lot of people complaining about water in their yards that I had no documentation about house getting water. And

I did want to kind of go over that like and I forgot to bring it down. I pulled all of my drainage concerns from 311 and it's ages. Most of those we have dealt with by going and cleaning a ditch. Now, that becomes a maintenance thing for us that we have to clean. So, um the the drainage projects we're putting in front of you, the three that are in the budget are ones that water is getting in the home. There is a big challenge with the public because we have yards that flood and we have a good number of them in 311 and so and you can see what the cost is to try to start to address drainage. So I just I think some understanding of that um is something we've got to help the public with. We are trying to prioritize based on or we know water has gotten into the home and we're trying to put those projects based on the budget we've put aotted prioritized. Um so this and this is one of them. So we have we have in our budget to do option three which is obviously the only one that really made any difference and does the whole thing. the uh I'll have to defer to Olsson on what the price was because I didn't remember the number off their slide. It

was 816. Yeah. So there's 1.5 million assigned to that was put in the budget to cover this project.

Even the full one doesn't seem like we're getting a whole lot of bang for our buck. Is that pretty typical or does it seem like we're not getting as much progress as we usually get in a project? So, this one is unique because as Bill has pointed out, a lot of this could you go back to this that slide. Thank you very much. Um, and I'm just going to use an area as an example. The new complaints we got about water in the backyard were in along along this road. And this is a case where the backyards from these properties flow to the north right up against the back of these homes and then they flow east from backyard to backyard. And There's planter beds and fences that are holding that water direct. So, a later project could be running a swale or a ditch or a pipe across these backyards to drain them to the pipe. They don't have anywhere to go right now. And all of them end up flowing around this house where they're caught in the pipe out here. They're getting piped around the house up to the north. So, and and these are less than you're seeing numbers here that represent 8 to 12 inches of water during a rainfall event where it's rent where it's rained five or six inches over the day and there's puddle in the back of the house. It's

some of the houses don't have gutters on them. So, that water's just dumping right in the puddle in the backyard. Those are typically more private homeowner resolutions than they are city collection system to get some of that water out of the biggest impact is around we have we're keeping all this water from flowing down the street and down there Carl and Maria's house that yeah what will it be another solution more expensive solution to provide a better result to get rid of all of those we'd have to start building designed drains or soils or ditches up every one of those fence roads.

So, is that possible in in starting option three, but then also going to those neighbors to try and get easements to fix to do what we need to do? Question I think would be the city to go start paying to drain people's wet backyards. I think because we we have more than these that have wet backyards. So the 1 point what' you say and we.5.5 million 1.2 two million the budget that's out there is 1.5 million but that's for the three projects not just that's their individual lineup nutmeg has its own budget

and southwest second has it own it own budget so the budget for this is 1.5 this project that was there was 1.5 available finance said can you put it in for drainage budgets I said absolutely because we need to fix these things and it's in there. These are engineers estimates. They aren't bids. We need to get the bids in before we know exactly what that's going to cost. Um, we bid a project at Southwest Second and O, which also has water coming through homes. It uh believe the You guys don't know if top your head I've got it here. Let me just read it. Southwest Second and O and then is the project and then Nut

Nutmeg. Correct. So those are the three planned for 2026. These are the three planned drainage projects that are budgeted passed in the budget if without going into to drain people's yards. This does what we need it to do. Yes. To keep water out of people's houses. And if you the original maps went to have a yellow color on them where you're getting more than a foot of water in your yard. This was designed to pick up the yellow areas and make on FTN's original study, which is the worst flooding there is. All I mean, if it rains 8 inches, you're probably going to have water standing in most of the yards in town. So,

we've done a lot of this work in downtown. And I will say we have where complaints were coming in, we have addressed that in a lot of places. This needs to be done all over downtown. You got old infrastructure. This is wet backyard disco. So, I mean, you got to start somewhere. We're trying to prioritize where we think we have water in homes, and that's just that's how we're working through it. Southwest second and O, the engineers estimate was $828,000 bids again. We had three biders. The bid lowest bid came in at 1.2 million. So, it's 44% over budget. We're going to go back and re-engineer and look for some ways to save some money and try to get back in line with the approved budget.

That's great. So, we're we're looking at the same things on on nutmeg, too. Um, real question is, yeah, do you peacemeal this or do you since we have budget available, go fix the whole thing. Um, my recommendation would be fix the whole thing. But I wanted you to hear from the engineers. So, sounds good.

Okay. any all for what I was trying to do and we've initiated that with the budget by getting the funds for this project. Um I wanted to do make sure there's no doubt that we have to have the collection system increased under Tiger. There's no doubt of that for anybody and the road the road was widened. It already is sending more water off the road than it was previously and we didn't adjust things. So there's obviously place if we can afford to do the whole thing when the bids come in. Amen. Um, but I like what you're talking about rebidding that, re-engineering it to make sure it comes in on our estimate or less.

And one of the things we're doing is the direction of the council in general to focus on where houses were flooding. That project on Southwest and O, there's a section that keeps water out of the homes and there's a section that gets that water to the bottom of the hill. The section to the bottom of the hill could potenti and that's where the largest cost was is was installing that pipe. We may be able to do those kind of things. We do need you guys as a council to understand and I'm happy to go through all my 311s with you because I have had probably I don't know at least 50 conversations about water in yards and um those are hard conversations especially when you pl pull up the flood map and you show them house is built in a flood like and that's why we require it being built three foot up but that does also your yard

the yard and that's just and we have homes that were not built three up didn't exist back in the so every city has are having the same conversations in downtown the really old infrastructure we don't have I mean but every city has that as well so we just need to have a plan to address it and that's what we're doing last time we talked about downtown drainage we talked about how people are filling in their ditches to add parking in front of their houses and how that's exacerbating the problem. Have we looked into that at all? Like what maybe we could do to dig up some of those ditches to solve some of our You looking around me or you looking

Well, Tyler, I don't know where Tyler Tyler might have left, but um we are having that conversation. What we do, it's not that we're against them filling the ditch, but it's what they fill the ditch with. It needs to be because in some cases they'll put a pipe in. They'll get a rideway permit. We'll tell them what size to put in. But it's like if people are filling in ditches and then we're having to use tax dollars to fix drainage issues because they filled in the ditch. Like I'm not okay. Water comes down the ditch just hits the top and then oh my yard's flooding because they didn't go down in the ditch.

In this particular area there are a few of the houses there's a neighbor that's a concrete contractor. He apparently went around and gave a lot of people great prices on widening their driveways in several cases along here where they widen like this is one they widen the driveway there letting the water in. Now the water stuck in the backyard where it used to go where the driveway is down the gutter line and then they Yeah. So, and while they probably should have applied for a permit, that was several years ago. Are we going to go make him dig up their I mean, that's the reality of the things we're trying to deal with and be fair with everybody, right? And help him understand. One last question.

We're doing everything we can. I got I got one.

Uh, candidly, I think Bill was first. I would, you know, similarly we go around and and we do the street assessment, good, bad or ugly. We do the telephone pole, good, bad or ugly. We have several assessments that we go around. And as I leave here in any direction, I see collapsed pipes in bar ditches between here and five blocks down the street. They're smushed to this level with nothing able to get through. If we were able to clear these ditches just down to the main drainage that we improved, it would get the water out of here. I know we've done that work, but I haven't seen that machine out in a long time. But I I can drive. This is the same conversation we had three years ago. From here to to 102, there's collapsed pipes on both sides of the road not allowing water through the ditch. do have a maintenance point, but like I was saying before, when you look at my 311s, a lot of them are solved by cleaning the ditch. That's another ditch that gets added to this.

Well, it's our duty to clean up our drainage ditches. If they're collapsed, we need to fix it. That that costs time and money as well, personnel to do that more often is what I'm saying to you. So, I just need you guys to understand that like we're trying to work through it. But

so there was a bill there was a specific area just north of 10th that had flooding going from southwest a street just south of the this be just south of the fire fire building and it was flooding that entire corner and actually backing water up to the we figured out that that there was a metal pipe under the road that was collapsed. We came in and replaced that. There's now an 18inch equivalent arch pipe under there and the ditches are cleaned down. That area is now draining. I appreciate and listen I and I understand that and I thank you for that. Uh I this is my last request that I think that if we have bar ditches that we need to maintain. This was the conversation I had 3 to four years ago using that as an example or down there on 7th Street or other examples that exists still today and it should be in a maintenance program just like our water sewer, just like our roads. We do have we do have

we have money budgeted for those and we prioritize them based on impacts to the neighborhoods. But I see a priority listed. I'm just saying our main drag is not done. So I would like to just I don't know when it's going to be done or how we're how we're picking just to go down there and clean up these ditches and pipes. What schedule are they on? Are when are they going to be done? How is that managed? I have no idea because the same ones are the same way. It's not your fault. I'm just saying it's the same way when I drive here every time for council and say, "Nope." Well, maybe those places aren't flooding, so they're not on the We're not getting complaints about them.

Well, downtown floods because it's flat and there's nowhere for it to go. And every ditch is necessary to get it to our main canal, which is Trip 2, coming up through there that we spent $7 million on. I got to get the water there and I got to get it there fairly quickly. Absolutely. And so I just so the I will from having looked at that the places that are suffering the most that had been getting flooded before trip 2 were built aren't along Southwest A Street. They're over on Southeast 10th, 11th and 12th. And those are the areas where we if you go look at I believe it's 13th Street. We just cleaned all the ditches over there that's helped the drainage in people's yards and homes,

right? Um, those are the areas that are actually in a floodway or flood plane and they've they get damaged. There's water still in the yards. Now, I got reports of any homes getting water in them over there, but those are our first area. The areas that were in the flood planes are the ones we're trying to clean the ditches in first. I just want us to be diligent on a overall maintenance plan of our existing bar ditches. And if there's less than a quarter or an eighth of the pipe existing or they're filled with dirt and then it's not working for our overall drainage system whether it's a private we need to have a consistent method of making sure that those are in working.

Is that something we can budget in the f you know budget maintenance for that? I will we need to increase our budget for street maintenance because we have more streets than we had three years ago. The maintenance there is a maintenance plan. Does it get done as often as we would love everyone? Again, some probably not based on time and resources, but but we can we can bring some we can bring some information and we have there's we're trying to get some of the larger ones that have issues on the CIP which is a some of them are big enough to be a capital project, some of them are maintenance projects. That was for dramatic. long term. Every city is looking at this

as well, guys. You have to have funding to do more things. So, that way that's so we're we're trying to prioritize where we have funding in these areas. So what we the conversation tonight was to show you the three projects that we have budgeted make sure we have consensus so we don't hold these projects up any longer because our goal is we have a project in that year we get that project done in that year so I want to release these guys to move these projects I know you thank you for being patient I'm sorry thank you option number three obviously is the one that produces the best result

even then uh the the amount of water on the south side of Tiger seems to be significant. Is there any uh option? Well, better yet, do you feel satisfied with the solution or a better in an additional investment will be good to do uh to put the pipe under Tiger because it is it is a one-time deal. We are not going back to it next year or nothing. Is is there anything that can be done in addition to what it is in the plan in order to reduce the amount of water on the south side of Tiger?

So absolutely you could just put a bigger pipe in. That is a that is kind of a unique spot in this area because it is not a flat spot. It is a valley and that house you see just to the west of it sits multiple feet above the bottom of the channel. So, it's not like just a half a block south where it's just flat as a pancake and you're trying to get water to move. So, because it's a low V, you're almost always going to get some water backing up into it. I've they've I've had a report from the current resident that they she has had water up into the porch in the current condition, but if you look at the levels and there, see how the blue goes dark blue, dark blue, dark blue, light blue. That light blue does is not a threat to our home. Well, that is an adequate solution.

That's in my opinion and I believe our engineers opinion. You want to argue with that? You're welcome to. I'm done. Thank you. Thank goodness. All right. I don't think there's enough for a consent agenda. We only have like one resolution. So, we will close the committee of the whole. Okay. With that, I will open us back up for our new business items. Um, I will say we did have somebody signed up on the drainage of Tiger NG. I will say that is under committee of the whole. We typically don't take public comment on that.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I was like I just wanted to make sure it wasn't somebody from um Okay. Um, so with that, I think we will go to new business if you're okay with we of us moving forward. No, you do want to speak. I I'm not sure.

I'm happy to also follow. So, so I will say I'm learning a little bit about committee of the whole and what we this item probably should have been under new business discussion, but since we're having a committee with whole with everything. So, ideally, I would have moved it. I would recommend we allow the public comment for committee of the whole on this one with the caveat that we'll do that. We'll write that do that better in the future. Yeah. I mean as a whole, not the council. Did we do a rule change or something? Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.

Hi, my name's Evan Schneer. I live over on Southwest Glover. Um I I have been a 31 my wife and I have put some 311 concerns and your office has been very responsive as have some of the staff that just walked out. So, thank you for that. Um I I would say I fall into that. I don't fall into the house flooding or to probably back to the picture, but I fall into the I've lived down here 11 years. I fall into the newly flooding yard because of decisions that have been made in the process. And I think that's the frustrating part for my wife and I. Um it started with a reasonzoning that was done behind us where a developer had it reszoned and the I voiced concern in that meeting in 2020. The statement that was made by the committee said, "Oh, it's a developer. We hold them to higher standards. It won't be an issue. We do that." Great. It was instead split up, sold off to four individual land owners. They built their homes perfectly fine. They've done all the right things. Uh in 2023, I raised the issue with the city that we had a crushed pipe um that actually did drain the ditch. Uh the city engineer came out, took a look at it, said, "No, there's never been a pipe there. It's never drained. I've lived there 10 years. It's always drained, but neither here nor there." Um we've continued this conversation with the city off and on for a few months, uh sorry, years since 2023. So, I'm I'm not here expecting a resolution. And I would just say as a citizen two the two things that stood out in the previous com comment. One I hear you absolutely if my neighbor's houses were flooding you should prioritize them. But I do think there's a nuance between my yards flooded for 50 years and my yard started flooding because someone got a rideway permit to rip out a covert behind me because it wasn't on the city plan. I watched him rip the culvert out. It was there. So the

um [cough and clears throat] the drainage ditch Yeah. It's a it's a ditch that runs downhill on Glover. Um just right over here near the cemetery. Um there was a covert there. It wasn't on the Can we Is that something that can be cleaned that is helpful? Is that what uh No, unfortunately now that's what we asked for. Unfortunately, when the home was built behind us, the rideway permit was approved. There wasn't a drainage dish on this the GIS. And so the gentleman who approved the rideway permit didn't come out and look, said yes, it's approved. They ripped the culvert out. There's a driveway there. I think it's with it's a single family. So the approval y it's a so again

so that I will not that it's going to help you now but I that is a challenge for us that we do need to work through the process and and I hear what you're saying because I I do I have people in my office often and and I'm trying to yeah trying to explain and I get it your your yard wasn't flooding and it is now. So that's just the reality of the things that we're we're dealing with. So, I appreciate you coming. Thank you for letting me come up and comment. Happy to answer any questions. Appreciate it.

Okay. Item number one under new business is uh the boards and commissions process. That is in your agenda packet. Um it's really justformational of how we're going to try to be consistent u moving forward. It's great. Thank you for including that. Okay. I don't remember. Would you like to make I make a motion to suspend the rules requiring ordinances be read on three separate days and further move all ordinances and resolutions be read by the title only. Second move. Motion and second. Roll call, please. A yes. Eva, yes. Sudter, yes. Richardson, yes. Bart, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Item number two is a public art advisory committee appointment of Catherine Bay. Second. Have a motion and a second. Coffee. SA. Yes. Yes. Richardson, yes. Burkhart, yes. Cook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes. Yes. No. I just point of order. I've had deviated septum surgery. So, I have um stents in my nose, so I can't breathe out of my nose. So, I'm sorry if I'm sounding weird.

It'll be fixed tomorrow. [laughter] Heading number three is a public hearing and arts vacating out the street right away. At this time, I will open that public hearing. Is there anyone in person or online to speak of this item? Seeing and hearing none, I will close the public hearing.

New business item number three, ordinance vacating right ofway and establishing a utility easement located between lots 10 and 11 and lots 9 and 12 of block one of Smarts Addition to the City of Bentonville, Arkansas, Benton County, Arkansas, VAC25-0028. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Stor, yes. Richardson, yes. Birkhart, yes. Hook, yes. Yes. Patterson, yes. A, yes. Yes.

Item number four is a public hearing and ordinance vacating utility easement. This time, I'll open the public hearing for anyone online or in person to speak on this item. Seeing and hearing none, I'll close the public hearing. New business item number four, an ordinance vacating a utility easement located at lot 2 of 102 west subdivision of the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, Benton County, Arkansas, VAC25-000030. Second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Diet tree. Yes, that's easier to say

I was only laughing because that's the first time I've really heard Richardson in public. So I was like, are you used to that yet? Well, yes. Can't do what you Yes. Hook. Yes. Sanchez. Patterson. Yes. Yes. SA. Yes. Sudter. Yes. Item number five is a resolution for an agreement with Dion Business Solutions for EMS ambulance billing services. New business. Item number five, a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into a professional services agreement with Delion Business Solutions LLC doing business as Trinity billing for EMS ambulance billing services and further purposes. Second

motion and a second. Any other discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. We don't have any utility board items. So, we'll go to planning item number one. ordinance a property line adjustment of lot 7 of Highlands West Edition. Planning item number one, an ordinance accepting a property line adjustment of lots five and six of Highlands West Edition creating new lot seven of Highlands West Edition to the city of Bendville, Arkansas and other purposes project number PLA25-000034. So move second and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Bart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes. Ary,

yes. SA, yes. Sudter, yes. Guy, yes. Item number two is a property line adjustment of lot 15, block three of Fairfield edition. Planning item number two, an ordinance accepting a property line adjustment of lots 11 and 12, block three of Fairfield Addition, creating new lot 15, block 3 of Fairfield addition to the city of Bentville, Arkansas. And for other purposes, project number PLA25-000027. Motion in a second. Any other discussion? Procall, please. Yes. Yes. Patterson, yes. Yes. SA, yes. Sudter, yes. Yes. Bart, yes.

Item number three is a lot split of block 14 and 15 of block AF orchard edition. Planning item number three, an ordinance accepting a lot split of the west 60 ft of existing lots 1, four, and five, block E of Orchard Edition, creating new lots 14 and 15, block E of Orchard Edition to the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, and further purposes. Project number LS23-0057. Motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Yes. Patterson, yes. Yes. Yes. Sudter, yes. Yes. Bart, yes. Hook, yes. Yes.

Item number four is a property line adjustment of lot 57 of Dickens edition. [clears throat] Planning item number four, an ordinance accepting a property line adjustment of lot 4 of Dixon's addition, creating new lot 57 of Dixon's addition to the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, and for the purposes, project number PLA25-000033. Second motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Add yes. Yes. Yes. Sitter. Yes. Yes. Yes. Hook. Yes. Yes.

And number five is a resoning for Alex and Lisa Lake of revocable trust from low density single family residential to DN1 downtown low density residential at 802 Southwest. Second. Planning item number five, an ordinance changing real estate in the city of Bentonville, Arkansas from its present zoning classification of R1 lowdensity single family residential to DN1 downtown lowdensity residential and for other purposes project number RZ25-0047. Second motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Sudter, yes. Guy, yes. Yes. Hook. Yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson,

yes. Excuse me. Is this the one that was uh uh recommended by your department to go to DN1 instead of DN2? Uh the applicant requested that during the public hearing itself. The original request was to DN2. They amended their request to DN1 based on discussion with planning commission at the Was your recommendation to change it to DN1? I believe it was. Yes. That's what I think and that's what I was going to uh congratulate your team for the vision to reduce it and this and the planning commission to approve it at the same time in the in the reduced manner. Thank you.

Item number six is a resoning from low density single family to DN1 downtown at 612 Northeast 2nd Street. Planning item number six, an ordinance changing real estate in the city of Bentonville, Arkansas from its present zoning classification of R1 lowdensity single family residential to DN1 downtown lowdensity residential and for the purposes project number RZ25-0000 motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. SH, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson. Yes. Arie, yes.

Item number seven is a reszoning from lowdensity single family to downtown Edge at 607 Southeast Street. Planning item number seven, an ordinance changing real estate in the city of Bentonville, Arkansas from its present zoning classification of R1 lowdensity single family residential to detown edge and for other purposes project number RZ25-000049. Second a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Sudter, yes. Agno, yes. Bart, yes. Hook, yes. Yes. Patterson, yes. A yes. Zea, yes.

I'm so sorry. Motion. That concludes our voting agenda. So, I need a motion to adjurnn from that. So, move second. Motion second. All in favor? I did. I miss a Tyler question. Cody and Dan are like, they had a question for you. We were talking about filling in ditches and we talked about Got it. that. Okay. I don't know if you want to add commentary to it or not. I'm sure those guys handled it. So, you go after the ditches. No, no, I'm good. We We h we have a thought process for that that we'll bring back to you, right? Okay. Working through it.

All right. Uh we do have public comment on non-aggenda items. Um so, I will start. Um, Cara Matthews, you can come to the podium. If you can state your name and your address, and if you can keep your comments to three minutes or under, we appreciate it.

Um, I think Hi, I'm Cara Matthews. I'm a resident at 1305 Northeast 3rd Street um in Bentonville. I have some neighbors here with me as well. Um, this is a topic I've spent quite a bit of time on since I discovered the plans to construct uh two-sided sidewalks in our dead-end neighborhood last Thursday. It will be difficult for me to hit 3 minutes, but I'm really going to try. Um, I don't know if you all are aware of these plans. Um, but I am personally a fan of connecting safe streets here in Bentonville. However, um this neighborhood plan, which I have some leave behinds for you all and can indicate um on the plans, there are multiple deadend streets that require new construction. Also eliminating mature nigh um streets in our neighborhood while um higher need areas at the intersection of Jay, including Second all the way extending to the square are uh continuing to miss sidewalks. Um, in an effort to create safe passage to school, in particular the Washington Junior High, there's an already existing crosswalk light and 5-ft easement and sidewalk on second that connects to the school. Part of these plans includes an ADA um appropriate attachment to the school. We I think would probably agree that that's a great thing. However, connecting all side new sidewalks in this double deadend street seems excessive and better use of resources somewhere else. Um, a few details and I've got some follow-ups with some key questions I can leave with you all. Um, uh, we watched traffic on Friday, again, the day after we found out, we're not notified by anyone in the city. Um, there were less than 10 cars and five pedestrians. Um, just down the block based on Arkansas State traffic department average daily traffic count data on Second and J, there is an average daily use of 7,300

cars. Yet, there are breaks within the sidewalk. Again, there is an existing crosswalk that connects to that school that would be served by an improvement of an ADA um, access at the back. Um, I also want to call out two items in page three and four from the plan from tool. Um, these are double sidewalks to a dead end fence that do not access Orchards Park. I don't know if this is someone who did not walk the location. It is new construction to service two house one h homes that is just a complete dead-end fence. If that connected to Orchard's Park or that added access, that would be great. However, just behind that through this new walkway connecting the school, there's beautiful trails. They connect everywhere. um trying to talk very quickly, but feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions. Um in addition to this, we're losing a few very mature trees and there are inconsistency in the plan. At my lot in particular, we have around, I would say, a 40ft magnolia tree. Post tornado of 2024. It's the last remaining evergreen tree on our street. I would really love to retain it. a few options and I'm going to reference the inconsistency on the plan. The sidewalk moves um parallel to the street in and out.

When public comments reach three minutes, I would just like to propose some additional options that could be considered like curbside. I think we're we're we're planning a neighborhood meeting and probably all of those or if you want to give copies of council, you could certainly do that. But I think all of those would probably be part of that neighborhood meeting as well. I received an email on the way here that there would be a neighborhood. Yeah. And I I think we're trying to I don't know. We I think we had somebody meeting with some people in your neighborhood last night and then we're trying to gather everybody's information to get together a a meeting.

Yeah, it's a bit concerning because we're hearing mixed messages. We didn't hear any of this from the city and it sounds like we were almost discouraged from coming here last night. And there's also word that people have been told that I was okay with my 40 foot tree being replaced by a 5 in tree. I haven't spoken to anyone at the city. So I I haven't Yeah, we welcome a neighborhood meeting and that would be great, but we are pretty concerned about this because no one has spoken to us and we're already hearing some inconsistencies speaking to parks and wreck. So again, lots of follow-ups, questions, utilities, insurance, replacement. I'm happy to leave these binders with anyone

for for my benefit for a subject for this. What neighborhood? This is the first I've heard second and third off Jay. We approved this project last meeting. Second and third off J. So right before Jay reaches central.

Oh right. Do you know where? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, um, yes, goals there. So, we we have heard the concerns. We want to do a neighborhood meeting and get everybody together and kind of talk through it. And I I'm positive we will figure out what makes the most sense there and and work with you guys on that. So, um, we appreciate the feedback and, um, we'll need some help just making sure this when we do neighbor making sure everybody's got and I think Lori and some others are willing to kind of help coordinate and get everybody together and talk through it. Um, and we do think there are maybe some areas of consensus around the crossing and different things and so we want to work through that.

Yeah, there's great resources that exist. There's some that seem unnecessary. Um, and on paper it may seem like it's connecting the school, but it's actually behind a subdivision. So, there's really beautiful trails that already exist to do that. Um, I'm not sure constructing them into a wall is the best place for our resources. So yeah, would love to connect or understand how we can make it a priority because like I said since we found out last Thursday, communication has been pretty inconsistent. Um and this we want to talk through that process too. Um this is a project if we could all just be heard. If we know what's happening or where to meet, that would be great. Right now it's all been through word of mouth or someone stopping by after 7 o'clock at night to one neighbor but no one else knows it's happening.

Yeah. And I I don't think anything has been organized. That's why we want to do the neighborhood meeting and we'll rely on all you guys to kind of get everybody together and when Okay. Thank you so much for your time. Okay, Lori.

Hi everyone. My name's Lori Carter and I also live on Northeast Third Street. I also have the same concerns that Gar has, but I guess all the time I'm going to take up for you is to say this. I we came here tonight. Yes. Last night or this morning, Josh did email and say, "Hey, let's have a neighborhood meeting." I feel like that's kind of, you know, a little too a little too late. But also, I really wanted to stress to you all that I don't I truly don't believe you all understood what you were approving. It was sidewalks on two sides of five dead end streets. You can get through to the school on Second Street as she told you. We need to fix that ramp, but fix the ramp and ta you can take this money and move it to drainage. I don't know. But, you know, nobody is concerned with traffic or ambulating through our neighborhood. So, I just thought you all should be wildly aware. I mean, one of the streets even both second and third have signs that say not a through street when you enter it. Spriggs is a culde-sac. Brook Haven is not only a culdeac. There's a giant sign when you enter that says dead end. This is where we're prioritizing our sidewalks. So, I'm just going to leave you with that. We are going to have a meeting with Josh. We really appreciate it. I just wish we didn't have to learn from the AT&T guy who was out marking the utilities. So, thank you all for your time.

And and just to give a little context, I believe, and I just found out when I got your comments, I went and dug into it. We had another project on a different street. We could not obtain the land because they wanted us to purchase the rightway. These neighborhoods are some older neighborhoods and I think that I think the intention behind it was well but your but our ability to we should have communicated with neighbors on the front and I think this is going to be definitely a learning experience. It's easy to obtain. Is it the right choice?

And I I agree with you. I think you're absolutely right on that and that's the conversation.

40 foot 900 trees.

Yeah. And I think that's some of the the challenges. Parks and wreck are not here, but I think they'll kind of walk through that with you guys as well. And we're I apologize that it's hit you guys like it has because that's was I don't think that's ever our intention from the the city. Okay. Um, Cecilia Hicks. Hi, I'm Cecilia Hicks. I also live on Northeast Third Street. Um, I think you can tell that there's a lot of passion here about what's happening to our neighborhood. Um, I think the big things that I want you guys as council members to take away are I've heard a lot of opportunities that have been spoken about tonight of places that we can allocate this money. that's really going to make a big a bigger and better impact. I would like people's yards not to be flooded. We don't really have that problem over here. With those addition of those sidewalks and the removal of these trees, I think we're going to probably run into some of those issues. And so, I just don't think that, you know, it's really worth all of our taxpayer dollars going to putting sidewalks into a neighborhood where everyone that I spoke to did not want them. and I have seniors. I have people with young families. Um, for me, this hits home. I'm one of three people that's losing a tree. When I purchased this home in Bentonville 14 years ago with my daughter, um, at the time, we planted that tree.

And so, it's a red bud tree. It's beautiful. Every spring, my neighbor comes over and gets the red buds. She uses them for jam. She uses them for food. It's a tree that we all love in the neighborhood. We feel the same way about the magnolia tree as well. Um, again, I think it just comes down to a make make it make sense, you know, from a dollar's perspective for us or at least work with us and communicate with us because we were really completely blindsided on this. And also the communication that's coming back from our parks and recreation department. Um, I can say that we're really not following protocol. I've worked in corporate. I know how these things should go. We should have communication first. I shouldn't be getting a phone call from a guy asking if he can meet me at 5:30 in the afternoon at my house to really kind of devise his plan before he talks to his boss in the next morning. I think we can be a little bit more professional about this and we can actually come to the table, talk to our neighbors about this problem and come to a better solution or allocate those funds somewhere else in this city where it's needed. We don't have the foot traffic. We just don't. Surveying wasn't done. Um, our kids don't have any problems running up and down the street and Josh saw that when he was there at my house. So, um, I do know that there's another neighbor. He didn't get his name on the sheet. So, I think he has some important aspects to speak about. Um, there's some legal stuff here, too. We not quite sure all that's been buttoned up. And I think that as a neighborhood, you know, do we go and speak to a real estate lawyer? I mean, I think we would be doing our due diligence in doing that. Is this really worth all of this? You know,

I think let us have the neighborhood. I think we'll get there. So, let's have them I don't think y'all need to do that at this point, though. But, um is there you're not signed up, but I think it sounds like if there's somebody else that wants to speak, I I'm assuming that council wants to allow that. Sure. I would very much like to hear from anyone that sat for two hours and Can I have one of your binders, please? It does sound like we are are doing the right thing. Usually we get in trouble for not having a sidewalk. First time we've ever sidewalk this time. Let's not put sidewalks where they don't belong. Put them where they do belong. There's a lot of people who want sidewalks. So

um sorry to hammer this point home. Um I'm coming at it more of a legal standpoint as my um house is um on Second Street. Sorry, I'm Spencer Nelly. of um with all on second and M the corner. Um and my house is 50 47 years old. Um I've had a driveway for that 47 years. Not me personally obviously, but um that's been a right of that house. And what I've counted just um this evening was around 12 houses that have um less than a 21 ft driveway. Um if you were to take 10 ft of that, you can measure your car. Most cars are around 17 ft. If you take 10 feet of a 20 foot driveway, you have a 10-ft driveway, you no longer have a driveway, which would be um technically considered inverse condemnation, which you'd be taking a ride away from my house that's been there for 47 years. So, just wanted to not like um put [clears throat] the legal aspect into like I would love a sidewalk um but my house is too close to the road currently. So, if a sidewalk causes me to not be able to park my car um and now I have to park in the road, which is um kind of a problem in our street anyway. Um I'm also one of the houses that would lose a tree. So, um losing a tree and losing my driveway sounds um rough. So, just wanted to put that um in the minds before that meeting as well. Thank you.

Okay, we have um right. Yay, you can. And then I think we have one more.

Okay, I'll I'll make this quick. I couldn't miss an opportunity. Uh Brett Meek, 11:04 Spriggs Court. I have advocated for many projects over the years, but rarely do I get to actually speak on one that is my yard, uh which is on Spriggs Court. Um as somebody who has been following this project, um as it made its way through the public process, I was very excited about the prospect of a sidewalk on our street. Uh my wife and I have two small children, one four and one one-year-old. Uh every day that the weather is permitting, we uh my wife walks our son to uh Appleglenn Elementary, down Spriggs Court, uh up the street, and then down Second Street. The ADA improvements at the transition that is east of the intersection of M and Second are very well needed. It's a dangerous intersection. It's pretty easy, honestly, as it sits right now, to lose a stroller as you as you're transitioning down that street uh transition. So, I think that's much needed. Um, I do also want to speak to a neighbor that we have on our street uh an elderly gentleman who walks every day to the Dollar General that's at the corner to buy the dinner that he needs uh daily. We do have a number of pedestrians up and down our street. We also have a large number of uh short-term rentals which result in people heavily using uh the street to access pedestrian trails at Crystal Bridges and and just uh downtown in general. So, I know not everyone is in the mode of regularly using walking as a means of transit, but some people uh on our street and in our neighborhood do depend on it. and especially on the streets where no sidewalk is existing, sprigs in particular, uh right now, I think this would be a great improvement. Now, that doesn't necessarily speak to, you know, if you might be able to get by with one side of the street versus the other, as long as there is a facility on every street. I think that's that's

ideal. Um, and I obviously understand the the citizens who are concerned about the loss of mature trees, which is a is a concern in our neighborhood for sure. But just wanted to voice the the other side of the coin. Um we're excited about this project. I will gladly um allow the city to construct in the in their right of way um a pedestrian improvement at my house. So I just wanted to uh just voice that opinion. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm Mike Armstrong 3602 Northwest Creek here in Bentonville. I'm running for a family court judge here in Benton County for Judge Francis's seat. That election is March 3rd. Um, and I'm running because I believe that this community deserves judges who are experienced, who will listen with patience and compassion, and will always put children and families first, and I'll be that judge for our community. I've practiced law here in Northwest Arkansas for over 20 years. Um, start early in my career, I started out as a prosecutor here, prosecuting child sex crimes. I worked at the Children's Advocacy Center. My office was right there in that building and I I heard saw a lot of things I wish I hadn't had to see and learned about a lot of things that I wish no child ever had to go through. And it made me realize just how important our courts are in protecting our children. And for the past 15 or 16 years, I've handled almost exclusively family law cases, divorces and adoptions, custody cases, the very same cases that Judge Rants hears on a daily basis. And that means that on day one I will have the experience to know how to work those cases, know how and understand those cases and to know how a decision I make on day one affect families two months or two years or 10 years down the road. That kind of experience I think would be invaluable for our community. And that experience has also taught me that the most important skill a judge can have is to listen. Listening is I think everything in this business. You can't do justice if you're not willing to truly hear somebody their fears, their struggles, their hopes for their children. If you you're not going to find the truth as a judge unless you really listen. I I believe that. Um I've been married to my wife Amy for over 20 years, raised four kids. So, we understand uh the demands of family life. And I can I know this when families break down, our whole community feels it. when justice is delayed or when children are left in a lurch, uh it

hurts people in real ways. And that's why these jobs, there are four judicial spots open this year. That's why these they're so important. So, here's my promise. I promise to always uh work hard for this community, to approach every case with experience and patience and compassion, and to treat every single person who sets foot in my courtroom with dignity and fairness and respect because that's what they deserve. And I think that's what our judges owe to our community. So, it' be an honor for me to serve and I hope to earn your trust and your support and your vote on March 3rd. So, thank you very much. With that I think we got to all public comment. Is there any is there someone online but there is there anybody? All right. With that we will go to committee reviews.

Utility board didn't meet the library met. Uh we have uh two uh new board members. They're all happy beginning their duties. I don't have anything.

Traffic and signage met. And our big issue right now has to do with the newly installed three-way stop and crosswalk on Northwest Third Street over by color. And we had a large group turn out to discuss some alternative options. That stop sign, the two stop signs are three-way, not at a four-way, and they're at least 40 feet apart, and it's creating some confusion and problems. So, we have agreed to bring it back next month and look for another solution. Okay.

Okay. Um, we are going to try to bring some like tonight we did drainage. We're going to try to come back with presentation on roads and where we we're how we're prioritizing roads. Um, I will also say you guys asked us to look at water impact fees if you remember, but that was before we just did the sewer. So, I don't want to have the discussion right now because we're in committee review. But um you're asking us to reduce some of the existing ones. You also asked us to go back and look at water impact after we pass those water rates. So I think that's some discussion and some direction. I need um understand the wishes of council. Again, I don't really want to discuss it right now. Just putting that in front of you.

Parks board met last Monday. We toured the adult recreation center which is near completion. There'll be a couple days in is it late February? Late February uh for um open house tours some buy a membership kind of thing and then it should open sometime later in

uh tree and landscape actually meets Thursday. Okay. and your cell phones and your you still have an email from Dennis. I think you said from everybody but two of you. I won't call the two of you out. Look at your emails. Wasn't me. Um get your meeting scheduled to do that. So get it scheduled with him. Um today. All right. I think that's Thank you all. Next one. First come first serve. You get bigger screen. I thought we were scheduled.