City Council - Regular Meeting

you could use that for us. We would really appreciate it. We also have some physical forms if you would like to if you if you can't do the QR code, but we are test digital sign in. So, got some people. Now I think most of them are not really they're all testing. Well, one I jump up here. I can see them. I can't see that to read and see. So,

okay. When I'm red snow days, so I'm kind of the IT department. She hasn't felt well. Yes, it's Yes. Michael and it worked on it. Does appear to be working or whatever. Yeah. Okay. I don't see anybody running to the digital code or running to sign in. So, we're going to get started. With that, I will call us to order. I do not believe we have a scout here tonight. So, if you would still if you would um stand with me for the pledge of allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silence for our military.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Please. Sanchez here. Patterson here. A deep here. Sudter here. Richardson here. Birkhart

here. Hook here. Okay. Is Cindy online? She was on for finance and then she see if I can get her back. So, um just so you know, you should have received an email from us because the governor has declared a state of emergency. We actually technically if you normally you have to be in person to actually vote but because we're under that emergency declaration if you were online tonight you could vote. Um and that is what legal I think legal put out a um message to

you have to be on camera visible and be able to hear us us hear you. So yeah. Okay. You did roll call. Yes. Okay. Um, can I get an a motion to approve the minutes of the January 13, 2026 city council meeting? Second. Patterson, yes. Zeba, yes. Sudter, yes. Richardson, yes. Birkhart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Okay. Would Mr. Sudter, would you like to make any preliminary motions for this evening?

Um, yes. Yes. I'll make a motion to suspend the rules requiring ordinances be read on three separate days. Further move all ordinances and resolutions be read by their title only. SA. Yes. Sudter. Yes. Richardson. Yes. Birkhart. Yes. Hook. Yes. Sanchez. Patterson. Yes. With that, I will um dismiss us from our formal voting agenda and we will go to committee of the whole and turn it over to Chris as your chair. All right. For committee the whole we have the very first item is impact fee discussion. Who's going to you gonna start on that Tyler? Great.

Yep. I will. It's not just me though and and good evening everybody. Good to see you. But uh it's not just me. You're going to hear from six of us tonight as we kind of talk through impact fees a little bit. So, let me just go ahead and flip slides real quick. Okay. So, I'll start. I'm I'm just going to cover a little bit of the historical context how we got to where we are. So, we've we've had impact fee studies and ordinances back to 2002, 2006, 2009, 2015, and most recently 2023. Over time, we've had a variety of impact fees. police, fire, parks, library, uh water and sewer capacity fees at one point. And really the the whole goal with these is to ensure that as growth occurs, we're not reducing the level of service for existing citizens and rate payers. Um and and ultimately just impact fees as a general theory. The idea is that growth pays for growth. Um so I do want to zoom in a little bit on the 2023 study in particular. We we conducted that study between 2022 and 2023. Um so we had [clears throat] we entered into an agreement in November of 22. On March 14th of 2023, Tishler Bice came in. I mean actually presented a demographic memo as well as their methodology for the report itself to to you guys. Um, we received a staff level draft impact fee impact fee results in May of 2023. And then based on the dollar figure, which I'll get into in a second, and of what was in that original fee study, we actually revisited our CIPs because we're like, whoa, that is way too big of a dollar figure for us to stomach. We came back and presented to you all in on August 7th of 2023. And

then we presented a revised impact fee study in September. We came back October 10th to uh questions to or excuse me to answers of all of your questions posed on September 26th. And then we ultimately adopted the revised impact fee schedule on November 14th. It was the same year or two years earlier.

Oh, that's 2023. Good catch, Octavio. Yes. Um, so March 14th, 2023, we had our uh, this is just an the top selection is an excerpt from that demographic memo. The idea being what was the projected population increase year-over-year. You can see they had a a fairly conservative 2.4% annual population growth. And then on the bottom of the screen, what I've pulled in is what our actual in-house population estimates have been the last three years based on certificates of occupancy and the the growth rate and how that compares to the study. So 2024 we were running about 1 and a.5% higher than that 2.4% 2025 about 6% faster. And then hot off the presses, uh, for our new development fee, or excuse me, our our new, uh, 2025 development report, our current population estimate is based on 65,89, which is a 3.2% growth rate from 25 to 26. So, this is a direct excerpt from the Tishler Bice presentation that evening, and we we really came to you guys to ask a handful of things. Should the study continue with residential fee by size? If you remember, we had a conversation about should the fee schedule be based on the square footage of the unit or the unit type. We ultimately decided to to proceed with unit type way we've always done it. And then we actually had some specific category recommendations we were looking for guidance on. Did we want to include fire stations? Did we want to include library branches? and did we want to exclude transportation and utility facilities from that from the study. Uh based on that, we then came back in May of 2023 or excuse me, we received a

draft report that showed the numbers you can see up on the screen for the various types of impact fees. The maximum supportable fee for single family detached housing was $5,300, 4,200 for single family attached. So think duplex town home. Uh the the maximum for multif family was 2900 and then it's a per square foot basis or per,000 square ft for commercial types. We then came back and presented to you all after revisiting our CIPs. You can see those numbers went down uh pretty drastically. Um nearly what $900 on the single family detached. um came back presented that to all of you and based on the feedback from that evening. We then came back again se on in September after revisiting our CIPs making sure that we were right sizing the fee schedule and then we revisited the CIP again and ultimately adopted the fee schedule that's on the screen right here. So I and I I want to point all this out to just to say that this was an iterative process of us continually making sure that that that those CIPs were realistic, attainable, and that the fee was not going to be something that um was completely untenable. So ultimately, why are we here tonight? Um, and and I think the question that we need to ask ourselves if we're thinking about suspending, reducing, whatever you all ultimately decide on the impact fees is, are we willing to lower the level of service for our residents or are we willing to shift the cost of growth onto them? That's the [clears throat] whole purpose of us having an impact fee program. But, uh, before, you know, I slip into the background, I I I want to pass it over to Chief Scantlin, who's going to cover more specifics about

fire. So, I'm giving you the broad-based overview and then you're going to hear from each of the individual departments about their individual impact fees. I would ask too, let's hold all questions for the very end because we want to get through this in a timely manner.

All right. Thank you. Um, yeah, so impact fees for the fire department. Uh so I think mo a lot of you know our CIP is showing in the next about three to four years where of having station 8 and the need is there and we want to kind of show you kind of what that what that looks like. U but we did do some funding for station five. This is kind of some of the past stuff that we had uh what those costs were. Station one building. There's some more pictures of that. Some of station six and some of station 7 was all kind of aided with impact fee money. Uh this is our current capital improvement plan that we have in the current one. So fire station 8 again 4 and a half million. Three four years ago we started talking about this four and a half million probably not going to cover the whole thing but that's a good chunk of of of what we've got station and then a few other vehicles. So these are our standards. This is what tells us when to build a fire station, how to build a fire where to build a fire station. uh all these different things spell out uh the the standards that we are trying to meet in order to uh as we decide to build a fire station. ISO has also said if there's 50% or more built upon in a certain district then that's when it would key off a fire station too. But as we look at pladding and we start seeing that happen ahead of time of course we can't say 50% and then tomorrow build a fire station. So we have to plan ahead for that as well. And that district is showing that need. in the next one. Next one. Okay, there we go. This just shows those requirements and the on our on our response times of what are the numbers that we have to make and and I think there's been some confusion or maybe we haven't done a good enough job of getting this information out but we specifically and we talked about it in community council specifically have to get units to an incident within a

certain amount of time and that has to do with geograph geography. Uh but the big thing is we say 35 miles an hour. So that's why our station's a mile and a half radius. 35 miles an hour gets us five minutes as the first due unit on the scene, whether it's fire or EMS. And then to complete that care, so to speak, that we want to provide our citizens with to get to the full assignment, so to speak, that has to happen within 8 to 10 minutes. And so all these stations play their role in in meeting those numbers. And that's an ISO number that's that's real big on our ISO score. Could you just briefly touch on why that time is important? It actually saves money on the back end of saving the structure.

Get to a person that's having cardiac arrest and you are able to get them their effects from that.

Yes, ma'am. There's an average if you don't have oxygen to your brain in four to six minutes, there's not a high likelihood of survivability or there'll be long-term issues moving past that if you were to survive. And so we as a fire department in the city of Bville, we want to provide that five minute response, get there in order to give somebody a chance, right? It's kind of same thing with the fire side. If you're way out in the middle of nowhere and your house catches on fire, the chances of that of you, you know, us putting that out are slim. In the city, we we have pretty good stats that we that we get a fire out most of the time before there's significant damage or there's loss of life. So that's the service we want to provide to our citizens and that's what those numbers are built on. [clears throat] Those are national standard numbers as well. So this should say at the bit top there's a little misprint. The 35 mile response time for station one shows each district and where we can make that five minute response at 35 miles an hour. The next big boxes are kind of shows that eight minutes. And so we lay these out knowing the first one needs to get here then the second one needs to get here then the third one's going to get there then. Uh in some cases four to five stations have to respond and we need them there within 10 minutes. So as you can [clears throat] see the purple kind of on the left part of this map that's station 8 and that's filling that gap for the city that we don't have now.

So unfortunately we're not as as able to make those numbers as well in that district as we do in the others. And then these are some of the projects in the past that have partially at least been funded by impact fees. That's it for me. I think I'm not Oh, yeah. That's dangerous.

That's dangerous. So, [laughter] um, so, so good evening. Um, to just kind of jump in and and really dive head first into some of this. Um like Tyler mentioned when we started working on this um on at least the most recent update um we had a you know a quasi uh uh master plan that we provided to the consultants um this this is actually a slide that I showed you during the bud budget presentations at the end of 22 about the 23 um budget and we talked about what we have coming up in the next three years and you see some of the projects that are on there that are actually um uh complete. Not all of these were impact fee related projects. Some of them certainly were though. Um and it took us all the way through this year into 26. We also looked at the bike ped plan. Um everything everything that I was up there earlier was from the play Bentonville plan that was adopted in 17. Um and then and then we also looked at the connect Bentonville plan. I know you can't really read all the information that's on there, but that's all the tier one and tier 2 projects that are in the connect Bentonville plan that we uh collectively approved back in 2021. It helped us put together um those numbers. We took the um the projected prices for each of those projects, both parks and trails, and wrote those into that into that number. So, it was a number that Titler Bas created for us. We brought and brought to you all for approval. And I think the thing to know about, you know, impact fees over the, you know, the years in our parks is that how much good that they've really done to benefit our citizens. As I just roll through here, Citizens Park, all of the park outside of uh of the community center was paid for by impact fees. Merchants Baseball Park was an example that was paid. Orgers Park expansion, the dog park, the new playground um was paid for um in a big part by the apartments across the street from that creekide park um was paid for by um that the Cricut Grounds that are out there. Little Oage Creek Trail that runs from Oage Park all the way down to to Greenhouse and we'll finish all the way

around the Southwest Bentonville trail that connects Citizens Park to Brightfield Elementary. It actually loops all the way around now down Gator to um to to Morning Star. Um and there's there's a picture as it crosses the intersection there inside Lockmore. Uh $3 million of the building next door um that that will open here in a couple months will come from impact fees. If you remember um uh the the funer said, I I want to help pay for this, but I don't want to pay for all of it. And so we were able to utilize that because it was it was listed in our in our master plan. Um the connect Bentonville plan talks about the southwest Bentonville loop and um that red is everything that's left to do. All of that is in design as we speak and we're hoping to you know get a lot of that under construction maybe even by by the end of the year. And then you know one of the projects one of the tasks that Josh and uh Creek and several of our other team members Wade have has worked on over the course of the last month is um what you know what what's next for us. We know we have a master plan to do in uh 2026. We hope to adopt that um sometime uh early maybe middle of next year. We want to start that project this fall. Um happy to start it earlier if we need to. Um but what are some of the things that we need to be thinking about over the course of the next 10 years um to go forward and then and quite frankly even on the front half of that what do we need to be thinking about the first three years to make sure that our current CIPs are as up to date as we possibly can. I don't have prices. I don't have a lot of things quantified in this. I only have years assigned to some of that, but you can just understand some of the things um that are in there. I I I'll end at this and and I I really just I want to hammer down on the good that is that has come of these. I mean, so many of of our parks that are out there um came from the impact fees. It was funded in a big part by by the impact fees. And I understand um really the situation that we're in, but my fear is that if we back off this um where does where does that

put us in seven years? Where does that put us in 10 years? Um when I got here years ago, 18 years ago, um we were way behind the eightball in our park system and and we've been able to catch up thanks to a great council, thanks to a great community, a lot of great community partners, but the impact fees have also played a really big role in that. And my biggest fear is that if we take a step back um where are where are we five years and where are we in 10 years? What are the what are the citizens in here saying at at that point um of of you know [snorts] we moved to Bentonville because of the high quality of life and all of a sudden um it's it's declined a bit the level of service has gone down. So, I just I just I just want to make sure that we talk about maintaining that quality, maintaining that level of service um and um and think about those things as as we move forward. Thanks.

I did not want to go behind David, so but we'll get there. Um so we met with tits in 2023 and we we know there's going to be impact with growth on services and maintain the current services that we provide as a police department. Uh we are fortunate to be part of the impact fees and uh we identified four areas that we thought with the growth that are going to be impacted to m we want to make sure we're maintaining the same quality services that we provide today. Uh we already know we're probably a little behind. Uh some of this has to do with our facilities. I'll talk a little bit about that just uh some of it has to do with personnel growth which we can't fund with impact fee studies but we can offset a few things to include future vehicles for new hires patrol and C. We can't use it for replacement. It's got to be new positions, new vehicles expansion for future staff and evidence storage. Uh we looked at our current facilities. There are some mandates that we have to have. One is our evidence room. We taking about 2500 to 3,000 pieces of evidence a year. There's all kinds of case or state law and federal law on how long we can keep these items. Uh for example, items include like from a homicide we have to keep for 100 years. Well, that we have a vehicle and a motorcycle and actually two vehicles sitting out there that we have to maintain and and keep up with. Uh so there's a lot of stuff that goes you'll see a lot of departments just have warehouses full of stuff. And then on top of that, we're trying to keep up with construction orders for it doesn't get out of control. Uh we also looked at and this was new through the study was our expanded network uh with our our comm's improvements. We looked at what would be impacted and we know that our call center is going to continue to take in new calls. Uh they dispatch for our police, fire and EMS. So that was new added to the fee schedule and I think it's something if we do another uh study I think that if we get to where we're at with what we proposing here I think that could be something we can move in the future. Um so we looked at the capital needs and okay what's going to be impacted? Uh it's a lot of it's tied into our staffing. We grow a little different. Uh we have some of the same uh response issues that we run in with the fire department, public safety overall. Uh but we just don't grow by

fire stations. We're still centrally located at one facility uh with the possibility as substations in the future. Um just kind of give you a little view of our previous we went from one console to to prior to 1995 to two to three to four and then to our current facility where we have eight consoles. Part of the uh proposal for this impact fee study was to add three additional consoles to our comm center along with identifying a spot for uh possible deficiency based on growth for a tower site to be added. U we are we already in the works on this. This is something we'll plan to take to you guys on 2025 for the additional consoles to come in and that'll be one part that will be uh completed on this impact fee study. Uh that should be allow us to serve the community from 75 to 100,000 people. Uh so that's going to get us there in the future. Uh this is the three additional consoles on the end. And I'm g just kind of talk about how impact fees have helped us especially with our comm center. And that that's just an easy one to to have a visual on. In 2019, we completed our new building back there in the back with let's see if I get to it. H too many buttons here. that one right there with our comm center. And so I pulled an old agenda item. And so we know that impact fees are not going to fund everything, but it does help offset that cost of that growth. And so with this, we were able to use various funds, including 3.2 million in bond money, 3.2 million in impact fee money, and 3.2 million in set aides for that future growth that got us into this facility. uh which unfortunately we're growing pretty quick and uh it's going to hit us before we know it that we will outgrow this. Um we looked at our current facilities and we said we know that we cannot keep operating with what we currently have and we know there's an impact and so

we've we've had discussions about the training facility for some time what that looks like. We added a range through the 2021 bond extension.

So, we started with proposals last year and and it really exceeded the amount that we were able to work with. So, we're just kind of in a holding pattern a little bit till we decide the direction we need to go. Uh but we know that uh our current facility and I found this in 2008 and 1996 was made for 52 employees. Uh in 2008, we had gone to 78 employees. We're currently now at 149 employees. Uh we still have one training room uh took a picture today. They were in there. Uh so we on average we have about 30 employees doing defensive tactics at a period of time uh that throw 30 additional people in there and trying to roll in the mats. Uh that kind of gives you a size issue that we're running into along with the evidence areas. Uh going to what the fire department said on response times. Uh sometimes this is all tied into staffing but um find the notes here on that we our growth is dictated by some industry standards to include response times statistical officers per thousand for a community uh along with community expectations. I think the community gets a say in it on on what they would like to see law enforcement do. Uh this varies community to community based on workload calls for service and trend projections, crime trends, officer time usage uh for patrol versus investigations, geography and infrastructure. Bentville's pretty spread out. We just went through last year redoing our zones, we went from three to five zones. And so with a downtown core focus based on the urban density that we got coming in and there's on a perfect day, we might have two officers per zone. Uh but there's times where we have one officer per zone and they're handling all the calls for service, domestics, everything within those areas. So a lot of ours is tied into the growth per officers. Uh there is some standards out there that they use the 1.8 per thousand. Uh the FBI national standards 2.2 to 2.4 per thousand. Uh which would already put us about 11 below where we should be if we're using that 1.8 model. Um but

again, there is some offset in there with uh new positions as we continue to grow with the purchase of new vehicles. Again, our funding is coming from uh the uh the current structure that we have now. Uh we currently have uh plans in place for knocking out a couple of these are tonight. You guys are going to be approving the city council meeting for the the vehicle purchase. Three of those vehicles are three new positions that will come from impact fees. Uh helping offset those positions. I'm pass this on to library. I'm a little under the weather this evening. I'm sorry that uh you have to listen to me. I have detailed notes because David Wright said he would pinch it for me. Right, Dave?

Yes, sir.

All right. Um I'm I'm happy to be here this evening. I just wanted to touch on some of the library impact fees and some of our successes with the program. And I think it's a decision about choosing what level of service our city wants to give our community members, existing and new people moving to the area. Um, but one of the huge successes we had last year was our um books orderer that we expanded. We went from three bins to nine bins. And when we used impact fee money, the impact fees paid for the growth of that expansion. They didn't pay for the replacement of the three bins, they paid for the six additional bins. That system is a workhorse that is efficient. It really benefits our uh library services, our our staff, and as our collection growth continues to increase. And as our collection use grows, we use it more and more. We also have selfcheck terminals that are efficient for library operations and patrons. The new checkout terminals we installed in the expansion meet the patrons where they are in the children's department and the teen services area. a very responsive service for our patrons. And then the locker expansion at the community center is our most popular service there. It's at max capacity all of the time. We also used impact fee funds on which where am I pointing at? Thank you. Our maker space and digital lab. So that was a new amenity we added with the expansion and we didn't use the impact fees on the actual uh capital improvement the building itself but the technologies that are included in that is public use equipment that bridges a technological divide and it makes this new technology available for free for everyone. Since opening the maker space and digital lab have been fully outfitted with new technology and we've already expanded our fleet of 3D

printers. We've had over 5,000 visits to the maker space and growing interest from schools and class visits, which I think you can attest to. Um, we do charge a small cost recovery fee for materials like the filament in a 3D printer. So, last year we collected over $4,000 in that uh cost recovery fee. Thank you. No. So, here's just a snapshot of some library performance metrics going back to 2022. You can see there's no signs of slowing down for our public library. When we look at our new library card holders, our library visits, our program attendance. Um, all of those things are just increasing year-over-year. Over 400,000 people visited Bentonville Public Library in 2025. That's an average of 1400 visitors a day. When we opened our doors this morning at 10:00 a.m., we had a line waiting to get in. So, it is the place to be. Uh, program attendance of course skyrocketed, but I definitely want to point out the value of our library collection, the items we have available for checkout, and our circulation of physical materials. Circulation is checkouts, and I only included physical materials on this chart because we did not count ebooks. Impact fees pay for physical materials. Our community still values the hard copy and you can see that we had over 140,000 circs in 2025 versus 2024. So I'm really proud of those numbers. I think that the impact fees Tanner would you please really helped us get to those points and will help us continue to grow. Right now, I will say some of our metrics are outpacing our population growth by a percentage, which demonstrates that our library team is working hard to be responsive and utilize those impact fees to play a larger role and be able to respond. One more slide. So, library collections.

Here's a couple snapshots from the public library. Um, there's one of a young lady reading a book. We've got lots of cozy places for people to read and enjoy written material. Um, but there's a a photo I snapped today of the new releases. And even though we're trying to be responsive and trying to get those books in the hands of our patrons, we cannot keep books on the shelves in the children's department. Um, it is a little bit of a transition from endear to new year. But I'll tell you, the new books, the high demand titles, they're either on hold or people are pulling them off the shelving carts before we can put them on the on the shelves themselves. So the impact fees directly fund those shelving stacks. And then just in closing, I wanted to invite Cynthia Cochran up to the podium. She is our library advisory board chairperson and she has a few words she'd like to share with you all. Hi, good evening. As Haddie said, my name is Cynthia Cochran and I have the pleasure of serving as the library advisory board chair. I also have the pleasure of working in our Bentonville public schools where I see firsthand the number of families relocating to our community each year. Having served on the library advisory board for the past eight wonderful years, I've watched this growth translate directly into increased demand on our public library. More residents means more circulation, more visits, and greater strain on staff, collections, and technology. The Bittenville Public Library has been care a careful steward of its resources using impact fees to ensure that growth does not dilute the level of service our community expects. These investments help maintain a consistent standard of service as our population grows and library use increases yearover-year. Library collections remain heavily used and access to technology, including the maker space, continues to be an important learning resource for residents of all ages. These are not static amenities. They must scale with

our community. On behalf of the library advisory board, I respectfully ask city council to continue supporting library impact fees so that growth pays for growth and that existing residents are not asked to absorb the cost of ex of serving new demand. If the library libraries impact fees are cut, I must ask where will our new source of revenue come from? Thank you for your time this evening.

Thank you, Cynthia. She's uh doing a great job on our library advisory board as the incoming chairperson. Thank you for being here tonight. Um just in closing, I'd like to also say um if impact fee cut impact fees are cut, it doesn't decrease the need. There's still a real cost for library collections that will need to be funded. And as you all see, um, people really value the library, the books, the collections, the technology, and we want to make sure to hold that standard high for them as well. Thank you. I'm turning it over to Patrick now.

Good evening. See

[laughter] I I have no slides. I'm Patrick Jandra, finance director.

Um what I wanted to talk about is when we started this process, we started looking at [clears throat] the 2023 impact fee study. And of course, we started with where we're at. We've collected a little over $6 million of a $27 million CIP that was associated with that. So, and the next question was, let's look and see what projects we have development that are in the hopper [clears throat] that we're going to get in the next couple of years. When we looked at that, the we're around $15 million of additional fees with development that is on its way. [clears throat] So when we protract that out with the other is coming, we're going to be probably at the end of this impact fee study at 2028, which we would be starting the new study sometime in 29 or 28 or 29 on the five-year plan. [clears throat] So when we did the projections on the 15 million, of course, it's just a projection. It doesn't count any credits that might go back that would reduce that. Doesn't [clears throat] include any change plans that could happen to the projects or [clears throat] any uh projects that just don't get done. So, we're we're due to look relook at the impact fees in 2028, but where we're at, I think we need to entertain doing the study now. So we can look at the capital that we need for each one of these entities uh so that we're right sizing it. Uh I think everybody needs to be involved in the process on the council. You tell us what service levels we need to be

meeting and then we'll meet that with the impact fees. Um, so kind of in closing, you know, we're we're coming to ask for a we're going to engage a third party [clears throat] and I think it'll take 90 to 120 days and we'll get that study done and then come back to council and talk to you about what service levels you want to meet with each one of these entities. We're not going we're not going out to look for an answer. We're we're just looking for what we need what you all require for the city service levels.

And and to kind of wrap us up, two other things for consideration as we're talking about fees are you did ask us to re go back and look at a water uh impact fee. Um we have not done that yet. So we're going to add that part. And we also have a downtown development district that does not have impact fees associated with it. And that is also something that we think should be looked looked at. So currently there is an area in Bentonville that does not pay impact fees and it's under that downtown development district. We think those should probably be part of this conversation. I have a clarifying question and and it's probably loser error on my part. Um when we spoke at I believe the last council meeting about impact fees, my memory is it was in the context of new fee associated with our investment in sewer and whether we could pause the collments for which there was some confusion about whether they were grandfathered in or not. Now I know we also talked broadly about impact fees but when I saw impact fees on this agenda my assumption was we were answering that question. Now I could be

we thought it would be confusing. We'll talk through that now. That's that's kind of where we started when you kind of go down the road and you look at the collections you look at if we stopped today if No, but but really let me explain to you. So I believe Preston who hopefully is still here said there was like 18 projects. So this is not forever impact fees. This is not stop impact fees. This is we don't want impact fees. Okay. So it's a second question. But I am still concerned about and I may be getting the number wrong. Memory may not serve me right. But it was an isolated number of projects that um were in the development pipeline but maybe hadn't hadn't hit they were going to get caught

the trigger point. Correct. And so I want to know I thought the purpose of us discussing just when I saw impact fees on the committee of the whole it was to answer that question. I I don't have any concerns about what you guys have presented. I'm very aware of the conversation we had in 23 in which I remember asking what about water, what about roads, what about sewer. I think several of my colleagues did too. I think it's a false dichotomy to suggest that it's a pure trade-off and I don't think that's what this council asked of you two weeks ago. I think what we said was what about the developments that are in the pipeline and are about to get hit with a much larger fee than they anticipated when they began planning. Now I I could just be remembering the conversation wrong which I totally apologize if I

we couldn't amend it was sure that we couldn't amend or whether it was legal if we could amend and that was the just about grandfathering in those develop developments or what the status was of those developments which we can certainly talk about a different time though that specific question I don't I think I think we're prepared

I actually let me I appreciate you saying that because it actually has been confusing for staff staff too because there we have heard both look at the existing impact fees and can those be lowered and then we have also heard look at the development fee and is that can that be amended. So and and so just so we're not conflating that that those are those are separate but we have been asked um and we went back and listened to multiple city council meetings where um and tried to discern exactly what you guys were wanting us to look at and our understanding was both sets of that. the development fees. You wanted us to give you an answer on that. And then you also wanted us to look at these existing impact fees. And then before the last meeting, you you wanted us you have told us too to go back and look at water impact fees that were not calculated when rates when you told us not to calculate those with rates, but now you wanted us to go back and look at those to offset water rates. So it is it is confusing and we are trying to keep utility fund. So your utility rates and separate then these what we're talking about here are in general fund and Rafalis is your rate consultant on the utility side of it and Bish Tishler Vice is our consultant on the impact fees in the general fund it is confusing user experience if I'm coming into the city and I'm developing irrespective of where the fees are hitting me from I'm experiencing all of those fees so is what you're proposing today Patrick a comprehensive look from the user experience, not the city funding. Right? I'm crystal clear.

We need to do this this impact. So, it'll be on the the three that we're talking about. Now, water is a separate issue. It's a utility. So, what I want to do is I want to look at the 2023 study. Yeah.

Look at current conditions. Yep. where we're at. Come back to council. You're setting the service levels for the the city. We're just suggesting we, as Tyler said, we started at 5500 and came down to $3,800. I mean, it was a trimmed CIP. So, it it was a it was an interactive process. I wasn't involved in that one, but we're involved in this one. So, that's what we want to do. We're not looking for I want to do a study. I don't want to search. I don't want to seek an answer that we're trying to prove. I'm not trying to suggest direction on the water impact.

I'm asking if we can do it comprehensively. When we don't, like if I'm going to buy something and I think it's going to be a dollar and then I get to the checkout and it's $5 because I just got added four different fees. even if they come from four different departments as a user or the payer of that fee. Now the item is $5 instead of $1.

Well, yeah, we did have two separate questions at the last meeting. You brought up at the very end and said, "I don't want to talk about this tonight, but I think we should talk about water." That was the end of the conversation. It wasn't a discussion about water because you said we don't want to talk about it tonight. I'm not going to have her take any questions on this tonight. You brought it up. We didn't bring that up, but you brought it up at the end of the meeting up because you guys have brought it up and I can give you the recording of it asking us to reook at water impact fees. So that was directly came from direction of this council and I have the recording for it to play and again this is not to be this is to try to help you guys understand how complicated this how the calculations happen and how we're trying to plan for the future and have money. So it is it is a hard it is a complicated conversation. So, we want to work together on this, but we do need to get some clear direction. And I do think it's it's confusing. How many of you remembered the 2023 study and exactly what all you voted on? We did bring it. We did bring, but it's hard to understand and remember all that. And that's why we're trying to bring it back to you so we can really talk through it. And so, when you guys are making decisions in here, it these are long-term decisions. And and so I just want we need to work together on this to understand it. Our ask tonight is on the impact fees that you that we can go back to Tisher Bice and do the study earlier than we would be doing it with them and get good information that is vetted information that can be brought back to you using as much educated information and data as we can based on the growth that we know we're going to see. that that is the right way to do impact fees and to bring those recommendations to you and plan for the future. And so

that's our ask on that. Now I want Preston to talk about the development fees. We can finish this conversation if you want. I just was very confused because I was waiting to get to the other. Yeah. So So Preston will talk about the pre-con, he's got that covered. So, and [clears throat] maybe it's my fault when we got to digging into this, it seemed to be a bigger discussion because we had the downtown area that doesn't have any impact, which [clears throat] I understand why they did that, but I also understand that we've had tremendous success there. It's it's the the highest value property probably in the city now. So, it sits on the residential back,

right? Right. Should should that be included in this study? So, I'm wanting to put everything on the table for the 2023 impact study. We want to talk if we want to go do the water study, we can do the water study. How come Tishler buys can't do the water impact? They always did it before, didn't they? Well, Raph Talis is pretty well down the road with our rates. So, it's like it's and we want to keep the utilities. So, can they collaborate? So all the they all collab they all they all they all collaborate they just have their own even Tisler uses different methodologies

but this this is my when I say a comprehensive impact study if we use different data and different parts of the study it's not comprehensive because we did three separate studies and then tried to smash them together. So I do I love the idea that we would go out and do this. I think the part that's confusing for me is why we're not doing it comprehensively because what brought this back forward was well, we don't have adequate funding available for some of our water needs and some of our sewer needs. Here's some creative financing. The way we're going to fund that creative financing is more impact fees. So, we're just layering on top of an already established set of impact fees and that's what's causing the total net impact of those fees on our developers to grow. So to just just continue to look at the impact fees in the isolated way we've looked at the impact fees doesn't feel like it's going to help us.

I don't I don't think we're suggesting to look at them isolated. I think we have and we have to look at them as a whole especially when they're all using different methodologies depending on their outcome desire. It's not the same methodology whether it's level of service or cost analysis. They use all different method and they don't use them the same when they do one year and they come back and do another year. they change it for the outcome. So you can look back to 23, you can look back the previous one. It's not the same methodology how it's arrived. One was level of service, one was cost. So it's it's it's all done differently instead of continuing the same methodology so we can stay consistent.

Let me just ask a question then. If we have if tissue advice is done all and so is the recommendation from from council we also have them even though reptelis has done which I guess we can get repelis to share information with we can get to sherbice to look at water impact fee as well when we did the 23 just to clarify we did bring

those ideas to you and you told us not to look at water impact fees and trans streets if I'm correct when we went back and looked at everything. So that's why I'm saying guys, nobody's we're just we're trying to do this. It is confusing. We do need to get good consistent direction from you guys so we can go back and do all this and bring it to [clears throat] you um together. And that's that's what we're asking from city council is to give us clear direction and let us go forward and do this and do these studies with if it's just revised and bring you back a recommendation that is defensible. These calculations how you calculate growth and the percentage of growth that can be calculated in these is a very you don't get to just charge what you want. like you have to be able to prove all of these methodologies if you're going to charge these fees. That's why we're so adamant about making sure we use a third party, making sure the calculations are correct, and also getting input from city council on what are your goals. Do you want growth to pay for growth? Do you want rate payers paying for for do you want impact fees and rates combined to be able to get these projects? That's we need to get clear direction from city council so we're not going in 10 different directions trying to get you information.

This came about because the last meeting bill suggested perhaps we pause the rest of the impact fees for a bit because of the new development fees. But if we're not going to pause the rest of the fees, do we even need to do the study right now or can we wait until when they were scheduled? Like so like do we need to do anything right now if we're not going to make any change? If we don't feel like we need to make changes, we're not we're not saying we don't need to make changes. We say we just need to look and see if that's the ser the level service that you want to provide. But do we need to like do you feel like this is

pressing or is it something that can like we feel like our impact fees are pretty good where they're at? We can wait just look at water. or [clears throat] do you feel like we really do need to make No, I I think we need to look at them holistically in a whole. So we we have different conditions than we had in 2023 that we have now in 2027. So we need to look at impact fees as a whole and I mean we we're just I mean there's questions within the impact fee now that we've done a lot of the major projects. [clears throat]

There is questions. Do we still have that? Can you keep up with the hundreds and hundreds of acres that are being donated or given to us in parks? Can you keep up that that large acreage that we have and we're going to say every year we're going to collect the same amount of acreage? Is that an assumption that we can continue to make at that high price or do we we the level of service is not necessarily to having the exact same acreage done every year or are we going to duplicate all the trails again? No, we have certain segments that we have to do. We're not going to duplicate the entire system or we're not going to duplicate the 100 acre park, you know. So, there's things that need to be discussed like we've already we just did the library. Are we going to build another library? are 70% of the of the people or 60% that was stated in this this meeting room months ago that 60% using our park system are not from here. We need to re-evaluate that cost study and maybe talk about if that's the case if our bike trails and our and our parks and our baseball fields because other communities don't have these things and over 50% is by other. Should we look at that analysis and it's not the level of service, it's the cost or just talk about that because things have conditions have we are now booming in our tourist industry which is great. Uh there's a lot of tourist here that should be paying some but right now we're placing it on residential and so we're trying to a lot of these services that I see here. The reason I bring this up and so I'd like to just get back to the question that I asked if I could and then the question about whether we're going to grandfather anybody in that had LS had approval at large development versus precon was the other question that we had that night. Those are the two questions that we had for this evening. So, I brought this up

because of the unknown amount that we were talking about in the impact fee that was finally discovered in December or the capacity fee of the sewer. There's a lot of questions in that. I don't won't rehash all of that, how it was figured, what's all included in it. Uh, and I'm not sure if we're going by 2026 numbers in that report or still 25 since it's the first year, but I use 25. So, We have services that are that should be provided and paid for by our citizen. We've talked about a lot of them tonight. Our basic fire, police, and so forth. They're usually paid through our taxes and paid for services. And as people come on board, just like our schools, we have property taxes. We have other things that is for our basic services that we provide. That is the basic services that our taxes should provide. Then we have services that that go beyond that that we're trying to do to improve our quality of life, our level of services. But our biggest issues and has been since 2015 is our water, sewer, and main infrastructure. And so without going back and where we're at and why we're at it, we are now at a capacity fee level for our sewer and it's growing going to grow every year. But I want to give you a relation to the real reason we're all here is can any of our workers or anybody actually afford to live here and what is this going to do to them? That's what this is about. What is when are we going to reach a certain point that we can't fee our way out of this and we have to come up with other solutions. So mayor, when you're talking about what do I want to hear the next time I get an impact fee study, I would like to have a full finance package of how we're going to pay for everything. Not just impact fees, not just I would like to see the bonds. I would like to see every opportunity on how we're going to pay for our needs. So,

and and Bill, we're happy to provide that. Just so we're clear, any bonds are backed by rateayers. That means those rates go up on all of the public. So, if growth is going to pay you, that's what I'm saying from council. You have to give us clear direction to pay for growth or if you want rateayers to do it. You're saying that nothing should go. You have this narrative that between

a homeowner or a person in a lease versus the citizenry at at the at the race bait. How many rateayers that we have? You've created this division between everybody. And when I'm looking at basic services that's paid by everybody. And so when I'm looking at and I just want to walk through this. So our current fees for a single family home, we talked about that. It's 38.45. Well, that's not the fee of the buyer, right? So, with the standard margin, you're talking about 4614. Now, our new fees, this is just this year, first year, 78.67, but that's to the developer. He pays interest on it for four years. I use 7.5% interest compounded only annually and with a standard margin 20%. That's gross, not net. So, that's 126 to the builder. But then the builder has to build the house, has to buy the lot. This fees him, then he has to mark it up, right? He can't do it for free. So he marks it up to 20%. And so now you're at $19,3734 between the current fees and the new capacity fees that's being delivered to that buyer. Now think about that. $20,000 after December, the time it reaches our buyers, we've increased housing $20,000. Then they got to finance it. And after they finance it, it adds another $24,000 in interest over the mortgage, $43,000. Now, that's not including permits, utility payments, all the sales tax that that has to be paid in their home. So, the idea that gross not paying something No, we didn't say what we said is we have to decide what is that because I can assure you we can go through a list of everything the city is paying into this and and actually we're putting that

together. So, but that that's the conversation that needs to be well so that's why I added this up. So, we're talking about $19,000 to the buyer 197 currently. That's this year. Every year it goes up with capacity fees. Okay. So, and and here's what we're saying to you. We we have put together the CIPs to that match those cap. So, you have to take something you as council need to take things out of that CIP and that is the decision you'll have to make to lower that quality of service. Well,

if that's the case, if you don't I mean that's I mean that's the real conversation that that has to be had. Well, you're not. I want to finish if I could because the real conversation is how much are you going to put on these people? How much is leases going to go up? How much is your burger going to cost you to sell a burger? Can we go even go out to eat? Is it going to cost us $25 a burger, $30 a burger? Because leases are going to have to go up. Is everybody's apartment going to go up this much? Where are these? So, when is going to be enough? We keep talking about now we want to add a water fee, now we want to add this other fee. I'm going to tell you the market is already capped. We're already giving three and 5% away just to get because people can't afford them. The new on foreign development code is going to require POA everywhere. So then they're going to have POA dues. Their insurance is tripled. Our hyperinflation that we're causing here in Bentonville is it's our county that we're bringing employees are only making 89,000, not 180,000. And so I ask you, what do y'all want to do? I mean, do y'all want to do you think the appraisers can't keep up with this huge jump we just did? So we're short of appraisals right off the bat. So properties won't appraise and won't pencil. But will the market hold it? So what will happen? What will happen to us if if that happens that the market can't take this? Have we are have we ever looked at a zero growth cost to this city? What would cost us to run this without any growth and applied that model? But I want everybody to if you have an answer, what do we plan on doing?

Where would you propose we shift those costs to then if it wasn't to the new growth and the builders? That's got to come from somewhere. What do you where is it coming from? What I'm trying to say is let's let's look at a fire department that's that service territories was just shared with us. It's only a mile and a half.

But a guy that's got two fire stations next door to his house wants to build a house or do a development. Now you've made the entire city a level of service and that level of territory. They just said the response time has to be within a mile and a half, but they're paying for a fire station all the way all the way 20 minutes away, 30 minutes away. So there's if you're if you have people that library I saw 8,900 people that are new library card holders. That's far greater than the growth last year. So who is paying for this? Are we going to put it on put it on one segment of the population one industry? One segment of the population and the most important thing is shelter in our lifetime. The most important thing that we have is shelter. Everybody here has a job because somebody's purchased shelter. And so and everything's paid by it.

It's important to remember we all saw the budget and it was it was cut this year because of money coming in. It's not like we've got a bunch of fluff that we can just cut out. I mean's got to come from somewhere for basic services. Basic services should be paid by everybody, right? We doubled the water rates. Can we not cover it? But we're going to make Have we got an analysis of what other funding mechanisms we're going to have? No. No. Right now it is payable. Just remember the impact fees have to apply be can only be applied for capital based on growth and that calculation is done it's a very strict calculation of how that percentage is done so that growth is paying that so I just want to clarify that with with everybody and again

we're 19,000 the discussion is

is that you can't just without cutting things in CIP you cannot change in my and I think from From a financial standpoint, you guys have to give us some stability to work with numbers. We're trying to plan for growth. We're trying to do all this. I can tell you there's not another city out there that has done the type of analysis with assets and trying to plan for growth. We are setting that standard to be able to do that. It is incredibly hard because we have the information. So, we can either take the information we have and make good decisions with it and plan for the future or we can sat here and cut something like you did with water impact fees and yeah, we're paying for it now. deal.

So, mayor, what I'd like to do is if you if you want to if you want to talk about that, I'd be happy to cuz I asked from 2015 every single year, you were on the council. And also, when you became mayor and you refused to put any money in the budget for upgrading the sewer or maintaining the sewer, we got a report in 2020 that said we're going to run out of sewer in three years. We did nothing about it. It would have cost us 20% of what it cost us now in maintenance for that. And we million of our utilities. So don't say that about impact fees. It was about us not doing our job. Where are you going to get the money from, Bill? Where are you going to get? I' I'd like to know a full package of that instead of just one analysis.

Well, when are we going to stop on the We could probably argue about this. I'm trying to figure out where we're going to come up with 19 almost $20,000 for home. Right now, we're going to have to either cut projects that are have all been presented to us, whether we have any new parks or not, or any new library. I don't think that's going to affect it. Well, I'm just saying if we don't have impact fees, we don't do those projects. Pretty simple.

Um, my motivation in asking about the water impact fee was I'd like to just know what that would look like. We might not ever do it, but it might be that we prioritize water over and not raising the rates further over building more trails, no disrespect to the parks department, or building more library shelves or whatever it might be. Fire and police are a different matter. Those are sort of critical in my mind as well. But I just feel like we at least need to have the whole picture. I don't know if we need to redo the whole impact be studied or not. Uh, to me, we probably have all the information we need except for water. But I agree I agree with a lot of what you said, Bill, but I don't know what the solution is at this point. Uh, besides trimming expenses, but we have to keep our water and sewer and our transportation and our electric all

that's been my goal going. And it's going to take a lot of money. I think we all we're not we would be in denial to not recognize that at this point. I mean, even in 2023, we didn't all sit here and say, "Oh, we're going to need to double water rates in two years, so maybe we should." So, you know, Yeah. had we known that then and realized it, we probably would have made a different decision. And they did in 2023, we showed you where they did pull their CIP back and that's what we had to do back then. So, again, that's the conversation. You're going to have to pull that. I mean, you're gonna have to make some hard decisions and pull a c CIP back if you want to ch if you want to lower those fees.

Every citizen of this country is taking a look at their budget and having to say what is essential and what is not and having to cut things that are not essential. And I know that our departments have done that in the budget this year. But comes a point where we say this is not essential and we have to make these hard decisions. So I mean I I agree with Bill. It's untenable to the developer and to the final consumer. I sell houses that you know we've got to we've got to figure something out. We've got to get creative and make bets.

We have and I think with the development fee, even though Bill doesn't like it, we're moving forward with development. We're we're going to not be shut down in four bases that we were shut down in and we're continuing to we'll see if we are well. Yeah. I'd like to hear what you're hearing on the street because I'm hearing a lot of things that are that jeopardize a lot of things. Yeah. I mean I I've I've had a lot of developers come to me and say this these things don't pencil this project I can't even if I have even if I can get the sewer capacity for it won't pencil. So if if that's the we'll see I

I get that we're in a position where absolutely we're not growing and and these things are not going forward if we don't do something about the sewer. Yeah, but the way we are doing something about the sewer may still not help the situation unless somebody with really deep pockets. Certainly not going to be the local developers that are here wanting to to do something amazing in our city because they live here and they work here and they want to so and that may be the I mean that that may be the the end

you're gonna see you're going to see tonight ANRC we went asked for 23 million we're going to get maybe nine. They're out of money. I know there's [clears throat] a there's a lot I know we've looked at bonds. You know, people look at the revenues in utilities. A lot of those revenues in utilities are [clears throat] electric and they have a CIP or projects with those. So, we're we do have to take a hard look. It's like if we just want to look at water because we already have the cap, then we'll just look at water and then we need to have some hard discussions because you've seen the budget, you know, you know what happened to us this year. We lost almost 20% in sales tax rebate in the general fund. That was a hard

thing to overcome, but we did it. As staff, we're just bringing it to you and saying, listen, we need to work collaboratively. We're not we're trying to make these projects work. These guys have cut, you know, you know, this talked a lot about parks. parks is putting on a 50,000 square foot facility and 100 acres and then it didn't add a body count because they were asked not to this year. So it's not as though the departments are not working I don't think that at all. I think you guys Yeah. I mean, what you have done, it's it's and still at the end of the day, if we can't balance it, you can still talk about it.

You can still talk about the precon. Uh but when we got into this, it's a bigger it's a bigger issue. Do we suspend not suspend? We we've got a lot of needs. Just to be back to the original question from this council wants to suspend impact fees, but we want to reduce them to zero. We have that authority. There's nothing saying we can't reduce the impact fee. There's no study needed to say I'm going to charge you less money. Just like said we can charge anything we want. We could pause them until you brought the water fee back and we reassess whether we want any fee. Just saying I'm not advocating that. I'm just saying I don't know that legally we've done that. I would just tell you the ass

I've been here when we did it. And legally the ask from city would be the city and all of our team because all of our everyone knows their budgets. They know what their needs are. We know we have to have direction to cut something out of this CIPdeed if we if you guys if you tell us to do that. And so I'm just asking you guys give us good fiscal responsible decisions or things that we can move decisions with. So on the back end when we're trying to manage the finances so that the city can grow that we have that ability to do it and we're not we're not getting told two different directions to go. We have to run these calculations on the back end. It is it is not easy in a a growing city like this because growth costs money. You know what kind of money it costs at our our wastewater plants, our lines in the ground like these? This is hundreds of millions of dollars, right? We have to figure out the financing for that. And impact fees are one tool we use in every project we do. We still have to go find matching grant funds to get these in the ground. That's what I need you guys to understand of how difficult this is in the back end. I absolutely understand the cost to the developers. I wish we didn't have to have capacity upgrades, the plans that are hundreds of millions of dollars, right? But we do.

Yeah,

that's a health department decision. Not not necessarily us, right? We're trying to even have the conversations with the health department to help get a different calculation so those st standards we can give our data and to them because our team is good enough that we can show that data. We can do that in house. I can promise you, you go talk to cities across the state. I've been in meetings with them, like they don't want to pay for a $3,400 water audit that the legislators are requiring them to do. So, it is much bigger different conversations in all cities, but they're all dealing with water and sewer issues. But we are we have a really good team and go talk to anybody that has met with our water and sewer department and and and give listen to them. Our team knows what they're doing. We put you talked about the software earlier I think in finance that we've put in place like we're doing the things that need to be done to be able to figure out how to find the f financing so that growth does pay for growth. If you don't think that the rateayers pay for this, then you guys need to go back and look at what you passed. So, there is a combination here that has to work to grow the city and grow well. And we're asking to be able to do that in the right way. The right way to do that is to work with Tisher Vice, get the numbers in place that we will that we have in there to defend. So, that calculation is defensible. But the the impact feed projects are only funded and done when we have collected the impact, right?

Like we have an idea what we're going to do, but we have to collect it first. So if we stopped collecting just for a few months even, we would have we've got money in the bank. I'm assuming on all you saw that we had three million for for $2 million cost already. Theoretically, we wouldn't be permanently giving up any project. We would the risky run is if we bump up against the seven-year time frame and we don't have adequate capital to complete the projects that we like the $3 million that we have in the bank for a $2.8 million project. Spend the money. I just know what Tishel advice the report's going to come back and they're going to be higher than they are now because our costs have all gone up. So I can pretty much predict what they're going to say and we're going to sit here and raise the impact

and that's the one thing that we have. we're going to waste it. With our impact these studies, when I got to digging into it, it has a cap adjustment that we've never done that we we've never CPI CPI. We have a CPI adjustment that we've never done. So, it's you know, we I want to just be really clear. This isn't about staff.

I've worked with all of you for over 20 years. I was in the ditch with most of you when y'all were in the ditch. This isn't about staff. And for some reason it keeps being related where we're talking about staff doing something wrong. No, this is simply a economics for our citizens trying to understand what is the limit and it's not the developer you keep sharing that this developer is going to pay. That's not what's happening mayor and I I I only reason I have a problem with that is because who's paying that? It is the person that's living here. It's not the developer. The developer won't develop if he can't deliver that with his paying that cost over to somebody that's buying the home. So, it's not the developer paying the cost. It's the citizen buying the house paying the cost. And so, we have to this this some reason we put developer versus this or or or if you talk about this, it's against apartments. No, it's about what can the citizenry that we need to support the city. How can that child that lives in a house currently with their parents get their first house? How does the mother that lives by themselves go from the big house after the kids move out pay taxes all their life get another house in the same town they grew up in? That's what I'm talking about. And I want to know from this group when is when we're at $20,000 deliverable to that consumer. Now, not including what your lease rates are going to go up to, which will drive most of them except for maybe 30% of the population out of town. What is going to be too high in our opinion to pass on to one segment of the population, maybe 700 single family units a year?

What is going to be our price? So what action are you prop what what are you proposing we do or entertain doing? Well I think study don't study lower don't lower what

I think we should look at what impact fees we have collected which you showed me several and I should we ought to look at what is remaining in the capital improvement plan that hasn't been done yet and see the net difference. I saw one example that we had money already in the fund to pay for the project. I'd like to see really where that is so we could really see what the shortfall is. Do we think that we need another library expansion of that extent? Do we think that we need uh other things that we could revise? Will the level of service still require adding up all of our property in Benton C Bentonville that is considered parks and making sure that we acquire the same amount of acreage per rata per year. I mean, there's things that we could look at that could adjust this and still keep fees coming. I'm trying to understand just like you are in another way. What are we going to do? Because if we just keep adding this, I mean, just to think about the the 43,000 the homeowner is going to pay based on these fees over the life of their loan. What do what do we want to do? How are we going to how is the 60% of the population going to buy anything? And so is this community a community when it's a club or are we going to have ability for everybody to try to have a choice in housing? Right now there is not going to be a choice in housing. So my question is is instead of just looking at these as an impact fee, I would like to look them at at the same time a financing package. not not a a financing package two years down the road on a different CIP, not impact fees on one methodology here this year and then we look at a CIP for water, you know, that's now a different it needs to be at the same time and here's how we're going to acquire our financing to fix our situation and how all the pieces come together on the finance department. That's how I see

that working is try to figure out what that finance puzzle is. not one segment at a time years apart. It's not working. And so I just what I would like to do is I would like to look at our impact fees. If you think it's going to take 90 100 days, I don't know what the feed cost is going to be. It shouldn't be I mean most of them charge 90 to $100,000 if not more. Well, we've had a suggestion that we have an impact e study for the the general fund, uh, fire, police, uh, parks and library. We have one. So, what we don't have is water. Water should be pretty simple. We have a cip. It is it is the it's just a simple formula that a telis was started and I think we The council wanted to publish.

Can we do we can run the number time period? It was last year during the No, can we've already done it? Can we integrate the findings of water from um tell us tell us with the the general fund findings from Tisha Vice on the impact study the scope of the impact study that you were asking for. to just tackle on because because the water is going to be based on the system the water systems growth and what we need to do. No, I understand that. But when they come back to council and when we look at that in whatever context we look at that, can we look at both? So, we're comparing apples to apples even if you can look even if the data points we used for growth were

you can. Oh, so if the goal is to potentially, you know, if the ask is, can we lower impact fees? We're going to pay all of this money for a study that we're pretty sure is going to tell us we actually should increase impact fees. So, what's the point? No. Like, so that's that's not the intention. The intention I know it's not the intention, but like what's the point of the study? Like, what's the point of spending the money?

Hey, Aubrey, this is Bonnie. I'm so sorry to jump in. Um, and I'm and I'm hoping maybe this answers a couple of your questions. So, I reached out to Tishler Bice to ask them if they could get me a cost estimate for an update. Not a whole new not a whole new study, but an update. And part of that reason is because some of the things that our departments included in their CIP at the time, we've gotten other funding for. And so, we probably now need to take those projects out and reook at the level of service and what we're charging. I'm happy to come back to council. Um Tisher Bice told me it might take a week to put a cost estimate together. So happy to come back um at the next council meeting and give you guys an actual cost so that you have a better idea of what that would entail. But part of the reason why we want to go back to the experts is because that's our legal defense if we get challenged. when we start to um mess with is not the right term, but when we start to kind of fiddle with these numbers on our own or fiddle with level of service and and put things in and take things out outside of just lowering the fee, we kind of lose our legal coverage um and our defense if we were to get challenged in court.

Thank you. Um, Bonnie, can you just clarify? And, and I'm not, again, similar to what Chris said, I'm not presenting to do this, but like if we just flat cut all fees by 25%. We don't need a study to tell us we can cut fees. We just need a study to tell us fees can be higher than we charge right now.

You're right. We don't need a study to cut fees. If council wanted to cut the fee or suspend the fee, they could do that. Um you Tyler's point is valid of we would have to make sure that we have a comprehensive understanding of running up against that seven years if we're not collecting enough for a certain CIP project. Um but no, you're absolutely right. You can do that. All this conversation has been going on in relation to the philosophy of the impact fees and all of us understand that they are needed for growth and growth has to be paid by itself. Now the conversation has been uh deviated I think from the original question that I understood last time we met which is what are we going to do with the projects that are in transition that were cut in between they applied for the permit and they got the permit. Those 18 projects that were mentioned are the should be the essence of the conversation or the other the other portion that the the portion that we have been discussing. It is absolutely correct. The s the city has become incredibly expensive to build new homes. That's absolutely the reality of the situation. It doesn't remove the fact that we need a huge investment in the infrastructure that we have today. And it is even more than what we have seen today because what Preston is going to present in a few minutes perhaps is even more scary because the numbers are big big gigantic the need is huge. So

we have need in southwest area for sewer too. I know I mean I get it.

Yes. So wait. So we have this situation that uh as of it is today there are several areas in the city that cannot grow and if we put the impact fees there is also the possibility that many builders are going to refrain themselves from building and the the parcels are going to be left empty with no growth and no money coming in additional money from the city. Yes, it is it is it is bad if we do it and bad if we don't do it. So it is it is our choice and I think the choice has already been taken. In fact the fees the development fees that we agree on December the 22nd are already in place today. They should be charged today even the last five days. So it is the that is not the question the quest or or what it is the need or if we if it is expensive or not. It is radically expensive very very expensive. This city is for many reasons that no time to discuss but the key question is what do we do with those 18 projects and I think we should concentrate our discussions on that and then elaborate later on whatever else. Preston can answer those. But we also have You want to go ahead and answer those or do you want to get

Wait. Okay. Whatever. It's my turn.

So everybody's right. We all of us have a big issue in front of us that we got to really make some hard decisions on. And so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to present some facts and some information so that you all actually know what the situation is. Over the last two weeks, thankfully and by a lot of manh hours, our staff, your city staff has conducted, I think 11 pre-construction meetings in the last two weeks. They've talked to all the developments out there that were approved by planning commission, reached out to them, emailed them, encouraged them, and actually even picked a Wednesday when they don't do them to get to help that process. So, please know,

please know staff worked very hard because we knew this was an issue. There's 10 projects, 10 projects that currently have planning commission approval that did not make the January 22nd pre-construction date. I don't know the level of information you want me to give you, but I'm going to give you the total of those fees of those 10 projects that we would need to collect is $3.5 million. Okay? There is a range. There is a range of one development on this list that needs to pay us $1,787.95. There's another development on here that had a planning commission approval of November 2023 that's received an extension, another extension, and it's a 322 units. Their fee is going to be 2,623 and for their so $2.6 $6 million.

Is that one next to the new Bright Road cottage at Simpson Farms? That's that's off of Highway 12 right across they first and middle was in se uh September 23 plan commission 1123. They got an ex they're they expired on 24 they received an extension in 25. So, I've got a lot of data for each one of each one of the biggest one. Yeah, they went up for sale after this. We have last and and so we really haven't heard anything from them. I mean, their their current

they received an extension on October and so their current expiration date is going to be April 26. Um, we have another fee. Uh, town homes at Oz. I'm not familiar with where these are at. Their fee is $7,867 because they have one ERU. There's another one with 1.65 ERUS. They're $12,980. There's 17 units or 17 ERUs of $133,739. There's a net ERU of 10.66. and that is for a commercial development. Their estimated fee is $83,8622. We have another one that has seven erus, $55,69. Another one, 12 units, $94,44. And then we got 59 units, $464,153. the total of these 10 projects, which we've emailed all of them. We've got various comments back. Engineers that knew about the fee, didn't really look into my project. Uh there's others that knew about the fee that pushed to get precons to developments. They just didn't do some of these projects. I've got their last correspondence. So, we've got some that has no submitt since October 25, uh, May 25. They're all over the place. And so, that is the absolute list of 10 projects that are out there right now that are subject to the development fee that have received plan commission.

So, those the fees for those 10 projects, as you mentioned, is $3.6 million. 3.511 3.6 million. So if if we eliminate the last the last two which is $3.3 million, it's about a quarter of a million dollars on the remaining eight projects. This is my proposal for the council that that we consider the fees already established and and apply for those 10 projects in the understanding that the city did all they could in order to to move all the other projects past uh the construction meeting. and be done with it.

You're saying do we do nothing? It just goes as it goes.

It goes as it goes because it the effort was done by the city to put everybody in with the with no fees and many of them comply with the requirements that the city had or some of one of them the biggest one with $2.7 million fees. It is uh has been there for three years and it was approved two and a half years ago and nothing is happening. So it is it was not going to happen in a couple of weeks. So forget about it. They may require another extension or whatever. But it is the biggest one. It is 2.7 million versus 3.6. So forget about it. Be done with it and and continue our lives. I can appreciate that and I I know the staff has worked tremendously hard because I've been a part of some of those

you have

but it doesn't change the fact that nobody knew what these fees were until we passed it and in December before the holidays nobody knew we knew that we were paying at precon and I'm sorry for the misunderstanding but it wasn't said that anybody even that hasn't had a precon is going to pay this. I didn't recognize and I analyzed this back and forth and so yes, everybody by the time they got back from the holidays and we had the council meeting when I finally figured out and I asked the question, thank you for the answer. People had two weeks and the city did all they could to accommodate. But you can't get all the precon stuff if you weren't prepared or close enough. You cannot achieve.

So what will it take bill? Like if we said, "Okay, we're giving a month extension to these 10 projects." Is that enough time? Like what?

I don't know where they're all at. So I I don't know if it would help if it'll help one or if it'll help all 10. I know one that's already being sold. So they they got the fees and they were they can't make precon. So they're selling the project. They're selling the land. And so that's just it. And I don't think anybody's going to buy it at that price. So whoever bought it last, the musical chairs is done. Uh but I don't know if they can or they can't. Uh, nobody or at least I didn't and a lot of people have asked, they just weren't aware of it and I don't think it's intentional. I just think we voted on this, went on vacation and came back and said two weeks later if you don't have a precon, you got to pay these fees. Well, that's why I'm asking is there a

I don't know if they can get it done in in 30 days. I mean, I don't know or not. I don't know. I don't know the level of where they're at within. I just I have the last correspondence, you know. So some of these we haven't had a submittal since October 25. Just ask a question. I really And we reached out to all of these. They all knew pro pre when it was going to be. Is that correct? I mean

Yeah. And I've got notes, you know. We have notes that we talked I mean I don't I've just asked multiple times from our team and and the response has been that we have and I see people shaking their heads. Yes, we did. So I don't I just I do get a little frustrated if in a public meeting we're going to say things that I don't think our staff would agree with how we reached out to everybody.

I'm not I'm just giving you the facts, right? So that's all I'm doing. I may give you one. I'm not going to say the engineer's name, but spoke with the engineer. He knew about the fee, but did not look in to see how it would impact his project. I'm not going to say who it is or what project it is, but that, you know, that's and and then some of these they don't have submitts, you know, for the last since October, since May. I'm not here to try to make your decision for you. I'm giving you the facts. I also, you know, the question was, does the ordinance allow the waving? It does not. I've got Bonnie online to help me. Uh, and if you look at section five, uh, paragraph B says development permit and wastewater connections being sought as followed. The period from January 22nd through December 31st, 2026 is going to be the fee is $7,867. Uh we also have in section 11 which is the effective date and application. The provisions of this section shall be effective on January 22nd 26. So the current ordinance that we passed and and like I said Bonnie's here to give her legal advice does not give us the current ability to wave the fee after January 22nd.

I insist in my proposal. Everything has been made uh even with the with the absolutely poor timing and and and it is not an accusation. It is the reality of the situation the the poor moment in which it came December the 22nd a couple of days before or even within the holidays. So this this was absolutely poor timing but it was necessary and uh it it is already there and most of the uh developers already comply with the with the requirements and they have already escaped the fee. Those 10 who couldn't make it sorry but you pay and we are done.

Is there any more questions? not a lot of air at all and I can certainly I agree. You know, I see your point. Um, but when you're talking about uh not knowing when you're in the middle of a project, you've already got your financing. Nobody's going to give you any more money. You've already put your equity into a project. You can't go back to the bank and you're making your normal submittal times. you get back to people and all of a sudden if you're not the precon you're you're done. You have to pay if it's a hundred lot subdivision a million dollars over current impact fees. You don't make that work,

you know, you just don't make it work. It's too late in the process to get the work done. No, you can't do the pro. You don't have you'd have to come up with cash. Okay. And but I do want you to know that the team does have a lot of empathy. We've met with multiple developers trying to we're also

we're we're going to carry these conversations into the bankers and help them understand we're asking for this at precon and help them and we're we are proactively doing those conversations because we do want development and we do understand the cost and that and so I just want you to hear that as well. the the fee is the fee on this based on the loan amount and we did not we did not set we didn't set that. So I just I want you to know we're doing everything I no one wants to charge more in the development fee. I can assure you but the costs are the cost. We have the information we know our assets. We know what needs to get done. you have to let us do the be fiscally responsible and run those calculations and and put this forward. That that that doesn't mean we're not going to continue to do things on the back end. We're completely revamping our process, the one-stop shop. So, you hopefully can develop quicker and faster. We don't want you we don't want you coming into getting planning commission

approval and not being and not moving the project. That's part of like you have people holding capacity not getting projects done. So we have to do a better job on the back end too to move those to move projects. Right. We're go we are saying we want to have conversations with the state to re look at those calculations and let us be able to present information um to talk about the 10 state standard and can we we are the city of Bentonville is the one leading those conversations. bill. I wish we were not in the situation with sewer that we are. We just are and we have to address it. Is there any other question? Thank you for your work. Yeah. Thanks for

Yes. But what you just laid out to us is there's no none of those 10 people are I mean what's the highest $150,000? I'm not saying that's nothing. I'm just saying it's not a million dollars. So the highest fee the one highest fee besides the besides the 2.7 Yeah. Yeah. So, there is an apartment complex uh that is $464,000. Then we go to $133,000. Uh we then go to $83,000 $5,000. Understand the Yes. Yes ma'am. So half a million additional. So it would be

great Patrick if what you're saying from a finance perspective is that you need to do a study on impact fees then as far as I'm concerned I've heard options that

go do do the study my only ask is that during that three-month time period that we're doing the study can we do a review of comprehensive revenue options available for which the city council has the authority whether that means sending them to our voters here in Bentonville or not just a comprehensive matrix of what is the revenue source, what is the current percentage, when was the last time we changed it, and what is the taxing authority that exists around that mechanism. Um, chat GPT just did it for me real quick, so I'll send you this one. can build on it,

but and I'm not saying it's right, but I I'm not asking for a complicated analysis, but that way I think it would allow the city council like we're we're really fighting over one piece of the pie instead of talking about what options. So, what's our debt ratio study while I was up here? So, let me do that. Sure.

Just so you know the status of that, you guys approved the contract with raft list for them to do the water capacity based on the work we've been doing on the sewer. We paused that so we could get through that. So they're on board. They're ready. We can get that done right away. And so I can kick that back off. So that's already done. We're not saying that that is an absolute, right? We have these projects for the water built into a rate study. They're not in the current rates. We need to understand that. But they are in a rate study. Okay? And so we were not proposing a water impact fee for those. We're looking at that as an option. you guys will have that as a funding option. We'll also continue to have those projects in our rate study so that we can look at potential rates would be if we're going to have the opportunity to get the loans, which is a challenge that we all need to consider, right? Because as we heard this fall, that's not a guarantee like it used to be or bonds, any of those options to get. So, we've got to look at those. And so, we're just throwing options out on the table. We're not saying we're going to do one or the other, but you need the information in order to make a decision.

We can and we also we're applying for some grants and grant we are gap funding. Hopefully we might be able to present that. So in there we want to go ahead and move forward with the reooking at the rate study. Can we can we hear from them like Bonnie was saying on just an updated version versus a full That's what we're going to do. It's it's an update of the rate. Just I just need a little clarification. We're going to move forward with that. That is what with Rough Talis. The general fund impact fees are separate. So, do you you do also want us to look at No, that's what I was referring to. You're referring to the Tesla Bice

doing an update. Yes. Mine is a complete new study for the water. We'll look at that and bring that to you. Yeah. But the rate study that he's talking about, you saw last year. We just passed a year of it and we'll be bringing back those [clears throat] rates in April

in end of March and first April. We committed to the 100% rate increase to bring back or after list to do another analysis of our rates to find out how the revenues are matching with our spend on our service line replacement program and see what those rates if they're sufficient, what we need to do with those. We're also going to bring, and I will bring this to you, too, because you need to know if we're going to finance these water projects, we really need to lay out a few years of what we're going to do, right? Not kind of like what we did with the wastewater rates. We laid out a few years so we had that financial ability and security there. We're actually going to do the same thing with the water. When we review that, review our current state, where we're at, what we need to do, plus have a plan for the future for if we do that.

Like the 10 projects on our on our CI. Absolutely. 10 projects on that and and updating those where you're at on that's the priority. We also so you know we are reaching out on doing a scope of work to update our water master plan based on the reduction of our water consumption based on fixing leaks. We want to look and see if the timing of those projects has changed. So if some of those are getting pushed further out based on our less demand we need to have that update as well. So we're currently working through that scope and we're going to do we're working on that right now. There's a lot of things. We know this is tough. It's tough on all of us, right? We're all in this. It's not you and us. It's all of us. We're looking at every option we can. Great. Thank you.

Okay. We could do a consent agenda if you would like. Items new business. Items eight, nine, and 10. And item 12, I'm not sure about item 13, meeting procedure resolution, whether we all agree on that or not. And then we can do item one and two under utilities. So all of all those you mentioned except 13. Yeah, we can leave 13 out if we want. You want to leave it out? I mean, I don't I'm I'm good with it. I I was good.

Did everyone read through it and it lined up with what we discussed? And I had a question, but it's not urgent. Like it's not I just we can discuss any of them. Yeah, I'd rather discuss Leave 13 out. Okay. I just have some questions. Perfect. Okay. So that would be 9 10 I'm sorry 8 9 10 12 utility one and two. Second. Do we have to make the motion in the meeting or we do that now? Make the motion now. All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Okay. We will I will gladly pass it back.

Okay. So, we will adjourn from the committee of the whole. I will restart the uh city council meeting um with item agenda number one which is the Little Little Sugar Creek. We do have one signed in for public comment. So, we will go to that. Beth, if you can just state your name and your address and keep your comments to three minutes, we would appreciate it. Want my full screen.

Ah, there we go. Um, thank you very much for that up because what I wanted to do is be here tonight with all of you to celebrate this beautiful free flowing stream that we see. This is Little Sugar Creek, a picture that I took about a year ago in the summertime when we had a nice flow. And um you know, we've had a conversation with David at the end of this week um just to find out kind of where things stood uh from December 22nd when we had to tune in, you know, via Zoom over the Christmas holidays and was really happy to hear from David that um it sounds like there's now been a consensus about having full removal of the dam uh and taking out those spillways which are part of the dam as well. And so I want to say thank you Councilwoman Hook. Thank you Councilwoman Birkhart. Thank you Councilwoman Richardson new name. Thank you Councilwoman Sudter. Thank you Mayor Orman. Thank you Councilwoman Siba. Thank you Councilwoman Cindy ARI in your absence. Thank you Councilwoman Patterson and thank you in particular to Councilwoman Sanchez. We are really very much appreciative. This has been a 10 year if you think about it. 2015 I know the mayor was there, Chris was there, Bill was there when we had that meeting at the firehouse where you had a hundred people coming and saying, "Hey, we have a new vision for this property and this park." And what we're now seeing is this happen today. And so, thank you, David, very much for your partnership. And um we have some friends of Little Sugar Creek who are here. You need to stand up in the back. There you are. and and in particularly thank them for persistence and because in we're not only celebrating this little creek here and letting it be free flowing, but we're also really celebrating citizens

engagement and what can happen when we work together and see uh great results for our community. So again, our thank you and u and enjoy this beautiful picture. I think David presentation.

Hey, good evening again folks. Um [clears throat] so to to follow up from the um the meeting that we had and on December 22nd um if you remember that night we approved um the bid award to streamline environmental um approved some um contingency along with that uh with that bid. Um and then we approved the does uh the construction administration agreement with WCRC. Um there was a question and I think all of you asked it but but primarily I remember Aubrey um asking me was the spillway that remained in the in the design is was it the best practice? Was that the best thing to do? Um and my response was yeah you know I can't promise you that it is the best design. Um, and so what I promised that night, what I did as soon as I got back from the holidays is I sat down with WCRC and um, and we went through the design and every as aspect of it. Um, and and let me let me start with this. Um, it's not it's not it's not the best practice to have in in there. and WCRC is real quick to remind me of of you know, please know that we would have never left that in there. Um, if you hadn't asked us to. And it was it was a request that came from council. It came in a council meeting. It wasn't necessarily a resolution. Um, but it was a request that came from council um that just kind of said, "Hey, we want to do something to preserve the history of of of that public place and the way that the citizens of Benton County used to use it." um and and how how do we go about that? And so um that was one potential solution. Um but fast forward through to design um you know we we look at that structure and we say you know scientifically it may work um it it's it's there it could be stable but really the best practice of it is to knock it

down and take it to grade um and prevent any kind of barrier that that that's in that space. It also allows us to connect to wetland areas that would have been separated by that spillway. And so from an environmental standpoint, it actually flows a little bit better um to to be able to to knock it down and and to remove there. So my my recommendation to you tonight is um to to remove that spillway. It will come at a very small price. It comes at a cost of of about $12,000. And really what we've said to the design firm or to the construction firm is let's just go into it with a not to exceed. We don't think it will hit that 12, but let's go to a not to exceed 16,000. That gives them the cushion that that they need. Everything is a unit based bid, so it's not like they can fluctuate prices on us at all. It's all based on um what we have there. It doesn't require a change order. Um it's all inside of that contingency that you've already approved. Um so it really just works the same as any field change order that we that we have. So, it's a very easy process um to do and it allows us to move forward. Um I do want to touch on the historic preservation piece because um I I heard I heard you that night a couple years ago when you said we want to we want to tell that story and quite frankly so do I. And so one of the things that we've done um actually even before the end of the year is spoke with Miss Zada Lucas at the Bella Vista History Museum um and she says, "David, I'm ready to roll my sleeves up and help write the story as soon as y'all already." So um we'll meet with her as soon as next week and we'll start creating the um the story boards and those kinds of things that we probably will locate up near the restroom and the playground out of the floodway. Let's preserve those and take care of those as much as much as we possibly can. Um, but let's tell this the story, the history of that old public space and celebrate, you know, quite frankly what's coming. Uh, as Beth said, this has been a long time coming. Um, I for one am glad to be where we're at

tonight. Um, I feel I feel very comfortable with recommending that we that we make that change. Um, the one thing that I do feel like I I need to see from y'all, I need to hear from everybody is just an approval that you support this. I don't know if that's through a it's not a resolution. It's just David. Yes, we we're we're supportive, but um I think we're all ready to go and and and get this thing moving um as soon as we possibly can, David. All right. Maybe just a show of hands of everybody that Sounds great. That would be helpful. All right. Done.

So, um yeah, you'll see you'll see work start in a couple of months and uh we'll keep you in the loop through the process. Okay. Thanks y'all. Okay. Item number two is the Benville water utilities overarching the CIP planation.

Well, I'm I'm probably not the best guy to introduce this team because Bo and his team has been working very closely and very very diligently with this group of people. I do want to explain that you received an email this afternoon with few spreadsheets on them. A lot of information you're not going to know all that today, right? So I want to explain the difference. There's one spreadsheet that you're seeing as an overall asset renewal. So that's today's assets being replaced in today's in 2025. That's one spreadsheet. The other spreadsheet is a CIP. It's a capital improvement plan which identifies projects by year for all our infrastructure. This is water. This is what I call sewer rehab which is our wastewater collection system and the wastewater treatment which is a treatment facility in the lift station. So I hope these guys introduce yourself because there's a lot of experience there's a lot of knowledge and we do appreciate but I'm going to introduce Freeze Nichols and their team and they're going to run through this presentation.

Good evening mayor members of council. Thank you so much for having us this evening. My name is Ian Taylor. I'm with Freeze Nichols and as you can see on the screen here, we're here to discuss the water utilities overarching capital improvement plan. Um, I've only been with Freez Nichols for a couple years. Prior to that, I spent my career in in public service, most recently at a water, wastewater, and electric municipal utility that uh for a 10-year period there, we ranked number three in the nation for growth. So, while I don't know what you're experiencing, only you know that. Um, I can tell you that what I've learned about your community and your city, uh, working on this project and especially sitting here tonight listening to your debate, um, it feels real familiar to me. And so, um, got a lot lot of compassion for what y'all are going through. And I will tell you also that, uh, the dedication and professionalism of the staff that you have here is is commendable. And I'm sure you all are very proud of them. Being on this project here with y'all has uh, brought me a lot of joy just being around them to be honest with you. Is it off?

Let me figure out how to operate this thing. An engineering degree is not helping me, right?

All right. There's our agenda. So, I'm going to talk about a project overview. We'll get in the project task. That's basically the development of the CIP. We'll get into a financial analysis. We'll talk about asset renewal program, which is a big part of this. and we'll wrap it up, lay the plane on next steps. Okay. So, the primary goal of this project, it is to develop a CIP, right? But it's more than just putting projects together. It's coming up with a structured methodology for doing this going forward. And if you look those two paths down as you go down that slide over on the left, the uh what we have there is a structured framework for identifying projects to add additional capacity where capacity is needed. On the right, you can see that what those projects are are designated as are annual projects, primarily projects related um to asset renewal. I'm not going to read these to you. You're aware of the uh the drivers behind this project. But what I will say to you is that, you know, in my experience, once once growth reaches a certain level, it creates this strain across the entire community for for all of those involved in providing services to a community. I think what's important is that you recognize those effects. you anticipate the future effects and then you mobilize those resources to respond. And I'll tell you that that my experience on this project, as I said before, is exactly what I see this community doing. As difficult as the conversations are, um I think that what's happening is is very very encouraging. I will also say that water and wastewater projects in particular, they're what's called heavy civil construction. So what that means is they're large, they're complex, they're time consuming, they're expensive, but most of all, they're essential. like you can't not build them, right? It's just a very difficult uh situation. So, when the CIP grows to a certain level, it just requires a new level of resources uh planning and coordination and prioritization. And that's what I hope you'll see in this presentation. Okay. Like I alluded to earlier, there's basically two different kinds of of categories of projects for water wastewater. Two different paths. This first are these cap these capacity

addition projects that starts with a hydraulic model. It's a computer model. It's a water of the wastewater water wastewater system. You load in all the attributes. You put in growth and demand. You run these simulations and then you see where in the system in the water system or the wastewater system where you have limitations based on on capacity. You develop projects. Those become uh part of the CIP. On the other side, that's the asset renewal program. There's a lot of discussion in the previous presentation earlier about level of service. That's where this discussion starts. What is the level of service that you'd like to provide? Um, from there you get into an assessment of your assets. What is the condition of those assets? What's the remaining useful life? And then importantly, you perform a risk analysis, right? You look at, and we're going to talk about this quite a bit here in a bit, but you're going to look at what is the likelihood and consequence of a failure for that asset. You put all that together, that type of risk analysis, you have an opportunity to plan and optimize your O andM and capital investments in such a way that you're able to meet those level of service targets. I will say in in closing on this piece is that when you look at the history of of the community, the growth has been in the latter years. So the system that you all have is a relatively young system. So when you're focused on those aging infrastructure investments, you have an opportunity now in these years to really focus on the on on that piece, but then also plan for the future, which you're going to see a lot of here in just a minute. And I'll turn it over to Sam. Pick it up from here. Thank you, Ian. Mayor, me council. Nice to see you. Thank you for having us. I'm Sam Mills. I'm also with Frieza Nichols. Been there about a year and a half. Prior to joining Frieza Nichols, I was with San Antonio Water System for 20 years, of which the majority of that time was spent as the director engineering director of in infrastructure planning. So part of my my job was to look at how to serve growth. Basically to look at making sure we had infrastructure to

serve all new growth so we can we never turned anyone away. We had this we had the uh the capacity in our pipelines in our water system in our tanks in our treatment system our lift stations. We had that capacity. We were ready for growth. We also used impact fees to pay for it. That's a side topic not not our scope of work but uh it was one way to to do things. Uh my other part was to make sure we we also I was overseeing the overall comprehensive CIP for San Antonio water system which was everything else to make sure we addressed all of our our priorities across the board. So it included capacity included regulatory compliance it included just efficiency projects as well as aging infrastructure how to deal with that and how to figure out which of those projects to to select every year and go through that process. So we we basically broke it up in increments had an annual CIP that we did once a year and uh would have built on the 25 years similar to what you're doing to come up with those projects. So it was done every year but overall it was looking at what was left every year. We had to juggle projects because we couldn't always get the money every year was what we what the priorities were. So that's kind of a start. But now with Freeze and Nickels a 131 year old company. So a lot of the projects that Freeze and Nickels built or designed when when the cities were growing fast, they're now uh in hitting that aging infrastructure part. So we're also helping them with those asset renewal programs to deal with those things are going to age out over time. So So we're going to start looking at this comprehensive CIP with those initial project tasks were first to develop that CIP system. So to look at these, we call them project information forms or PIFFs for short, but basically to make sure we captured all the information that was that was important to you to city to make sure those things were all on it, including cost estimates, updated dates and schedules and all the basic drivers for why you need that project. And then to break that into that one, 5, 10, and 25 year planning horizon. So you have those annual reports. So from this 25

year CIP, then you have all your one-year CIPs. You basically build it out from that. and then integrate all those projects into one unified comprehensive CIP. So, and with that, like Ian was saying, there's the capacity driven projects and then there's the annual programs that were built from that. So, a Rick a real summary is just that we broke it up into the groupings that you have. So, uh the capacity driven projects are based on water distribution, wastewater mains, and wastewater facilities. The same matches the budgets that the that y'all use for water system. And then annual programs for both those asset renewals as well as the state highway department occasionally makes you move a main. So we put that in as far as something to to basically plan for when you know it. So looking at those capacity driven projects, there's 40 of those and this is an overall overview of what those projects are. Right now you have two water projects and six wastewater projects that are under design and easement acquisition. one wastewater pipeline project is you're I think you recent I know you recently awarded construction of that and then of course the wastewater treatment plant the WRF that you've is under construction now so that's all part of these these 40 projects looking at that also when we mention these projects we say capacitydriven projects but there's other elements to them each of these projects has something else to it maybe it's capacity driven is the big thing but it also could include regulatory compliance it could be addressing condition uh could be resiliency or efficiencies in your system. Your wastewater treatment plant is a great example of that does that does all of that. It it basically addresses all those things but your main driver was you were doubling capacity that plant. So that really is the was the starting point but you're doing a lot more than that. So with this on those 40 projects it was really started by all the studies that were done by other consultants Garver and Olsen and Trek and then then the city finished it up. the city

basically city staff went through and looked at what else is required to finish off these basins to make sure you're really addressing growth for for full buildout of the city. So part of the task was to basically go through and look at unification of all the projects to synchronize them to make sure the data was flowing the same. You're using the standardization to some extent uh and then look at the adjusted cost schedules to make sure things were syncing up. You weren't building something uh before downstream piece was ready. you weren't building upstream piece with over capacity for that downstream piece as as an example. We also looked at all the adjusted all the cost estimates based on national data as far and and using local data when we could to adjust those costs but to come up with something that was more meaningful as well as to make sure we use similar costs for each project. So some cost estimates didn't include mo and demob and we wanted to make sure everything was same same unific. Next was to look at the overall project mapping. So to look at a GISbased map for each of the projects and along with that look for inter for cooperation between departments. So water wastewater is not the only department for the city. We we've heard today you have parks and and drainage and transportation as well. So looking at those interdep departmental coordination opportunities. So here's your bottom line for the those capacitydriven projects. It's two about $675 million. That's the escalated price for those 40 projects over the next 10 years. And uh you see the bars in green are for the wastewater treatment plants. So 153 million that the board that this council has already approved as well as the four lift station projects. Those are the facility projects are shown in green. The 12 water projects are shown in blue. And then the 26 I'm sorry 28 wastewater projects are shown in orange process schedule. So that's what you're overall looking at on this this total map as well as the inset map that shows that overall all your master plan

projects. So your trails, your your your uh transportation projects as well as your drainage projects all on top of the same map that you have with the water wastewater project. So you can look at any potential. So every one of those projects, we also look for those overlaps and put them on the on the uh on those particular PIFF. So you could actually make sure we coordinated that with the with those departments when there's opportunities. So the annual programs that has a a lot of discussion on these annual programs and those asset renewal programs uh are listed and you know the six different types of programs and then the the state highway uh relocation programs. So, we put those in based on when you know those are happening. If you can going to include them in your CIP like the 18,000 feet of water and wastewater main that you're having to relocate along Highway 112 or 14, that's what most of us know, but as as far as those to basically they are going to take your staff time. There's often some money involved in those, but as well as just to be able to plan for them. So when you know of those, we can actually put those in your CIP and list those out as as far as look at those opportunities. The next was to look at the annual programs and those are all going to include based on this financial analysis to look at the big picture the overall cost for those programs as well as what the annual programs will be those annual average cost to do those replacements over time. Uh and then go through the risk of a riskbased assessment to look at where where do you start? You don't want to replace something just because it's old. You want to make sure it has something else to it. There's a reason to replace that those projects. So that's where the big the financial and budgetary analysis for those annual programs comes from. And you look at two things really. You're looking at the big picture of what is everything cost today. If you had to replace your whole system today, what would that be? And then what is that annual increment to do that? What does that take over time? So on the big picture looking at what does it take to replace your system

today? The seven different groupings for your system is based on about $1.7 billion to replace if you had to start over. Similar to an insurance policy, that's replacementbased policy. It includes current cost, not original cost excluding land. But um everything is is based on what's in the ground with the exception of the treatment plant. So you since you've already awarded that construction, your construction underway, we did it based on the 7.9 MGD plant that you're building now. And that's where the $316 million uh evaluation of cost for your treatment plant's going to be once you're finished with that project. We assume that everything else is based on what's there today and replace it one for one. So then the next was to take that that 1.7 billion and break that up into what what is the overall lifespan of each of these assets. Each one is different. Uh water manes are estimated about 80 years. on your water manes. We had a lot of details, a lot of data from your staff, from your GIS system. So, we were able to look at the different types of infrastructure in the ground and come up with an average weighted average is 180 80 years. Um, some pipes like cast iron pipes can go up to 135 years old and still be good pipes. That's some of the oldest infrastructure you have by the way. And um but some of the other pipes like asbestous pipes have a shorter lifespan. Your weighted average is 80 years for pip for water pipelines about 75 years for wastewater pipelines. Uh we said tanks, lift stations and the treatment plant are about 50 years overall total lifespan average lifespan and pump stations about 30 years. So with that, that comes out to about $27 million a year based on just taking those those overall lifespans, dividing them out, saying your 1.7 divided up based on those those lifespans comes out to about 27 million a year plus uh growth and inflation because your system is not staying the same. You're building new stuff every year. You're building

more pipelines. You're building about 3% more pipelines or you're getting about 3% more pipelines every year. Sometimes they're developer donated, but you're basically growing about that much every year. As well as um your the other facilities typically follow population growth. So as the population grows, we estimated your current numbers about 4.33%. So typically you add space in your in your capa capacity in your treatment plant in your um water system based on about that same increments. So that's what that's based on. So these are, you know, taking that 1.7 billion and then extrapolating that into 2026. That comes out to the the $27 billion per year. So this is the same uh chart or same pie chart that was on the previous one, except you're already doing a lot of this with the $675 million worth of capacity projects. They do a lot of other things as well. So they are addressing some of these things. You're already building new tanks. You're building you're you're upgrading tanks. you upgraded your your treatment plant. So, there's no need to actually spend money every year on the treatment plant uh because you're just building a new one right now. So, you're doing a lot of these things already. So, that took away almost half of what you're doing. Uh that said, you still have to replace pumps and um and motors and things like that at your at your treatment plant and as well as at your pump stations and lift stations. So, that comes out to about three million a year on average. your staff is awesome at getting that done and doing it efficiently and keeping backups and such, but that that's kind of an overall number. So, what's left is that $15.3 million a year to address your 2 million feet of water manes and your 1.4 million feet of wastewater mains. So, that's kind of what's left. And this is just an average number. It's not saying this is what you have to spend every year. This is say this is probably what your cost is going to be to replace these mains over time plus growth plus in plus cost escalations. So where to start? So how do you prioritize? You know, you don't

have unlimited money. You want to basically know where to do these projects. So that's what Cohen's going to talk about. We get into the riskbased assessment part of this. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Mayor, council, uh I'm Coen Carlson with Freezen Nichols. Um I lead our water wastewater master planning and asset management team. Um, I don't have the experience that those guys do working for or with a utility, but I've worked on a lot of master plans in my 19 years with Freez Nichols and I've been in a lot of these different uh conversations about what kind of infrastructure that we need. So, uh, as Sam mentioned, um, I'm going to talk about the asset renewal program. So, I'm going to expand a little bit on that 15.3 million that he talked about on average. Um, so as he pointed out, as Ian also pointed out, your system is relatively new in comparison to those average weighted remaining useful life of a new pipe as it's entered into the system. So we was talking about, you know, 50 to 80 years. A lot of your system is PVC and it's been built in the last 50 years. So you have some life. So when you look at an asset renewal program, you're kind of targeting that over 50 years initially as well as some of the newer stuff that maybe we need to keep an eye on. And so how do we expand on that? How do we talk about what to keep an eye on? Uh we mentioned the risk based assessment. So within a riskbased assessment, you're taking a look at the condition and the criticality of each asset, water and wastewater. Uh there's a lot of different ways to do this, you know, just from a desktop standpoint. We can take a look at the age and the material of the pipe. Um so how old a pipe is and what material it is. It's it's a parameter. hurts a constituent in in lie of having actual inspection data. Um it's not always perfect. Um everybody talks about clay tile pipe being the worst pipe. It's not good. We want to get rid of it. But if it's installed correctly and the ground above it is untouched, that pipe can last a really long time. So it's one of those things where we can have those constituents from a desktop level to say we need to focus on these. uh but to move beyond

that when we're looking at condition we're taking a look at the actual uh inspection data when we're doing CCTV or multi-ensor inspection what is the actual uh condition of that pipe is the pipe uh deformed is it have any of the concrete pipe is it deteriorating on the inside do we see any bars a lot of that information feeds into that condition and also using those water and wastewater models what is the available capacity um are we pushing that thing to the max? Is there not a lot of flow going through there where we have gases setting settling out? A lot of those play into the condition. So the condition component is is one part of the riskbased assessment and then you have the criticality. And so when you think about it, um how critical is a pipe? Um what is it serving? Especially for a waterline, are you serving a hospital? Are you serving a dialysis center? If they're out of water, that's a lot more critical than a neighborhood pipe. We don't want any citizens to be without water, but if you know five or six houses are out of water versus a big hospital, that's what makes that one serving pipe uh that much more critical. Um what is the impact to public image? So if you have an overflow, we don't want any overflows, those are bad. But if you have an overflow next to a water body or along one of your beautiful trails, um that's that's going to be a highly critical pipe as opposed to they're all critical, but if there's one in a neighborhood somewhere that you can get cleaned up quickly, it's not quite as critical. So, taking a look at that $15.3 million on average that Sam pointed out, uh, what we want to do is move to a data driven process to be able to use information that we have to target specific pipes that are of high risk of a poor condition as opposed to just saying we have to have 15.3. That's great. Um, but as staff continues to build out the riskbased assessment, it's going to be

better informative on what we actually need to target and how much do we need each year based off of current conditions and risk of the system. So, so what are the next steps? Um, we got to implement this. It's a lot of projects and so there's a lot of different things. I know there's a lot of discussion of where does all the money go, but um, it's a lot of projects that is necessarily necessary to serve growth. Um, so the projects, everything that's inside of this o overarching CIP are high level cost estimates. Uh, we've done a lot of looking at, uh, information from current projects, uh, previous projects, ongoing bids, a lot of information that went into these things, but they are cost estimates. And so as projects move into the design and bid phase, want to update those to make sure that we have updated costs within this this overarching CIP. Um new projects. So this isn't a static CIP. Um there's a lot of different priorities for the city, for the council. Um so as those priorities change, want to make sure that we update that and factor in where those priorities are within this CIP. um update uh or upload this information into the city's enterprise system to track this. Um whenever we were here last week talked about moving to the Procore system that staff is implementing that's going to help take it from just an idea on paper from where it is now all the way through the construction phase to see where we at, track the schedules, track the the money that's going out um throughout there. And so, as y'all spoke before, this isn't the only thing that requires funds. And so, where does this overarching CIP and where do the water and the utility projects fit within uh the annual budgets for you guys? And so, working with staff, working within the

CIP to know we want to develop if we want to build these new projects, uh here's what we need from a capacity standpoint. And then, uh the annual asset program. So again, we talked a little bit about how to identify those projects. The 15.3 million is the average um but looking at uh the risk based assessment and then working with the finance group to understand how much funds are available to do the asset renewal and then letting that data-driven process for the risk based assessment drive which projects need to be uh factored in for the next year a long way. So, with that, I wrap it up and ask if y'all have any questions. Yes, sir.

Make sure I understand. So, three buckets. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We have $675 million worth of new projects, some of which are funded, some some are not. Correct.

We have $15 million a year in what I would call depreciation of assets that we have to renew. That is an ongoing renewal of those assets that we need to be on top of on an annual basis. You've reduced it by what we've already improved from 30 million basically to 15 million. So on top of the 675 we have $15 million a year. That's on average given our our depreciation time frame that you've established based on our newness of the utility. That's going to be about our need for maintenance and replacement. That's not including maintenance. You're kind of That's only renewal of the asset, not maintenance of the asset. That's renewal of the asset.

Okay. So, where is the maintenance aspect of this as well? The the maintenance portion Bo and his team are tracking that and and I don't believe that's within this CIP. So, this is a capital and so any of the on andm to maintain those assets is a separate. So the maintenance will be placed in the O andM whether it's the whatever the number is it'll be placed in there like we currently have the $2 million in there for service line replacement that's where we're going to hold that maintenance on an annual basis in our budget is through your ON is that that's that's absolutely correct this is just for the replacement of the asset essentially starting over that lifespan

thank you so uh and this doesn't include roads this is just our waste water and This doesn't include any general fund. This doesn't include any roads or anything. So, this is just and those are the buckets that we're talking about. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. On the 675, what percentage of is the already funded? Did that slide go up that show that um is that just 230 or 239 million plus the engineering fees and stuff? we paid already on some of the water projects as well.

Yes, Bill, you're absolutely right. The pro the water projects and sewer projects that have started that we've that you've budgeted for are covered also or the $8 million loan we're looking at today or other things that's coming that's helping the fund. Thank you. And can you can you talk a little bit about this process and the buildout of the CIP and the land use plan and the population? Yeah, absolutely. that so people understand. And how many cities have you worked with are doing it this way to really be comprehensive with it?

That's a two-part and I can take the first part of that is um it's a little bit out of freeze and nickel scope to dive in and actually size the interceptor interceptors. They took the reports that we've had the previous consultants put together. They sized the interceptors based off the growth strategies within plan B bill. Luckily early on in the the water master planning phases uh plan Bentonville's land use plan was at a point where we were getting ready to adopt that. So we were able to use that data from that and then as we started looking through the sewer data we were able to use a population both commercial and residential to apply to every parcel in order to build out those basins and size those interceptors. That's when we were getting multiple reports with different line items. There wasn't a lot of consistency throughout the CIP. That's when Freeze and Nickels came on board and then they pulled all those together, made sure all the estimates matched, took some data from the reports, some data from some current bids, and then uh essentially came out with a more accurate number and more broke down more line items in the previous studies. I don't know of any other cities that are using a professional planner on their water utility staff to try and predict growth and and to strategize where that growth is going to be whether it's uh you know southwest when you talk urban development or downtown density. We're allocating a population based on plan Bentonville. So we're not assuming we're spreading infrastructure throughout the city. We're concentrating the areas that Plan Bendville has designed to encourage growth, which is extremely rare.

Are we still basing that on a total buildout in 25 or 30 on that land use? It's not a total buildout type scenario. It's it's more of a that's the plan to get us to that point. It's the the the total buildout for the area is what the plan is based on. So we're maximizing the the infrastructure for the lifespan of the infrastructure. So if it's 80 years, that's what we're sizing that for is 80 years. How many people can use that size of pipe and how long will that get us? So there's not set a set timeline. It's the lifespan of the infrastructure.

But the 40 projects that are comprehensive to allow for the maximum buildout of the density for each land use. Okay, that's what we're planning this on. That has a time frame to produce to build those projects. So you you've you've you're assigning a time frame that these projects have to be built or we've assigned a time for these projects to be built, right? And these are on the assumptions based on the total buildout of those land use, right? Items. What is that time frame?

There's no time frame. It's not a known like we we can't guarantee that the every parcel and every square footage within Bendville is going to be built out by a certain time frame. What we're doing is aiming for a population based on a an average increase year-over-year. Um that population with the data we have that gets us to 2050. So we have a population for 2050. So it's going to that infrastructure is going to last longer than that. We're not saying, yeah, we're not saying every parcel is going to be completely built out by we're building the infrastructure within what time frame? The the life of the infrastructure. So for the next 80 years, right? The new projects. Yeah. 2045 is the is the planning year within the master.

Same as our our previous study that we took it out 45. I miss that. Did I miss that whole time frame? Yeah. So that's that's the time frame we're we're we're building these projects out for and that's the plan in the cost and how we're spreading this cost out based on what we come up with or if we have better successes in our loss. We may not need that capacity. It would be triggered later.

Yep. And the good news with this contract with Freeze, it's for three years. So they're going to update that this coming year. We're going to come back to you and try to do an update to our water master plan addendum to make sure we're online with those capital projects. Then we can adjust this number. We're going to get bids in on some sewer projects in the next couple months of construction. We'll give those to freeze. They're going to update that. So, this is a constant uh and just like the water project that we tried to get the ANRC loan. Originally we were looking at 23 million and after we got better design and and and understanding of it that was lowered to 17. So it's very possible in this

hopefully and I would also say you know as we were building this program you have to understand we've been dealing with the past five six years of incredible inflation numbers. We're hoping that is leveling with construction stuff and we also hope that will um benefit us going forward as far as costs. Correct.

We've been uh seeing a lot of interest in bids so we're hoping that'll help have that down some. Well, I can't uh for me personally, this is what I've asked for for over a decade, and I'm really glad we're here. In our 2015 consultant, it recommended the exact same thing. So, I'm so glad we're doing this now. We'll have real information. We're combining everything. They'll all be on the same page, and we can really look at this and think about how we're going to do this long term now. And I think as a finance committee member, this is what I've been looking for. And so I appreciate all the hard work and what you've put together here. It makes perfect sense to me. Uh now we have to get work on the other side of things on how this is going to be done. I've talked to you'all about getting the money for these replacements for years. And so now we have to come up with how we're going to do $15 million a year within our rates and how that's going to be done because that's old infrastructure. That's not new infrastructure. We're going to we're going to continue to get gather information there too. So we get the actual age, we get the conditions through city works work order software. We can track that more so we know how many breaks per mile we have on certain pipe types. We can start to drill into that and fine-tune those renewal projects too.

Now I know why you want proour, right? Well, and that's also some of the things that drive the type of pipe we want in the ground, too, because we understanding what pipe is actually meeting the warranty and not and what's in the ground. And so, there's there's a lot of information that's being put in into this to

do it right. I mean, I'm just telling you like talk to any other city out there. They they are not doing this with their systems. It is and it is a lot of dedication behind the scenes to do it. So, and and do it right with what we've heard from council is you want us to you want the data you want us to do it you want us to plan for it you want the cip and you want us to grow well this is the way it is hard and finding all the financing pieces to this is even harder so I just want to say thank you and and I hope council you hear that from us so as we go through this as we bring you financing models those are the hard conversations we have to try to have to be able to support this. But I would tell you there's not another city that is really trying to plan for growth. And one of the reasons we're doing this is because we talked to other cities and what you guys talked about where you came from. You you've seen and heard these conversations. We're trying to do it better here by planning. So that's the goal with all of this. I just want y'all to hear that. so much.

Any other questions on that? I want to publicly say that I just appreciate Bose's team, Frieza Nichols, for their experience they've brought to this and the work. There's an over a 200page report that's driving this PowerPoint presentation. So, there's a lot of information. I just want to say that's they're a great team and so we're all thankful to have them. So, we get that report. You can get it much or as little as that as you want. thing if I could got to take feedback from tonight's meeting. We'll get that hosted on our website and share that link. That would be great. Thank you very much for everything.

Okay, we will go to item number three which is ordinant for a waiver of bid to purchase the police uniforms from all consent. Yes, we can actually. Sorry. No, don't worry. Okay. I have a motion for a consent agenda for 8, 9, 10, 12, and utility board 1 and two. Do you want to read those, please? Yes.

New new business item number eight, a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an amended agreement with GTS, Inc. in the amount of $11,214.81 for additional geotechnical services at the adult recreation center and for their purposes. New business item number nine, a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with Moser in the amount of $175,1966 for furniture, fixtures, and equipment for the parks maintenance building and further purposes. New business item number 10, a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with P and K equipment in the amount of 101,92262 for a mower for parks maintenance and further purposes. New business item number 12, a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with the Arkansas Department of Agriculture for a loan in the amount of up to 8,733,449 and for the purposes utility board item number one, a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into a contract with Northwest Arkansas windwater and consolidated pipe in a total amount of $89,196 for water mana materials and for the purpose utility board. Item number two, a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with Procore in the amount of 511,218.80 for the purchase of project management software and further purposes. So move

motion and second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Diva, yes. Sudtor, yes. Burkhart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. I'm Cindy Young. What

item number three is an ordinance for a waiver of bid to purchase police uniforms both LLC. Did I miss my name? No, I didn't hear. Yes, I didn't think I am. Am I leaving? Sorry. Sorry. Oh, okay. Item number three. I didn't vote. You're fine.

Okay. Just to clarify, we just did the consent agenda vote. It was a unanimous vote of item number three is an ordinance for a waiver of bid to purchase police uniforms and equipment from Gaul's LLC. New business item number three, an ordinance authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with Gauls LLC in the amount of $154,500 for the purchase of police uniforms and equipment, waving, competitive bidding, and further purposes. Motion and a second. Any other discussion? Call, please. Sudter, yes. Bart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes. Siba,

yes. Item number four is an ordinance for a waiver of bid to purchase 10 police department vehicles. New business item number four, an ordinance authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with Superior Automotive Group in the amount not to exceed $800,000 for the purchase of 10 police department vehicles with upfitting waving competitive bidding for the upfitting only and further purposes. Second a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Bart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes. Zeba, yes. Sudter, yes. Item number five is an ordinance requesting waiver of bid for medical supplies for paramedic ambulances.

New business item number five, an ordinance authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with certain specified vendors in the amount of $125,000 for the purchase of medical supplies for paramedic ambulances, waving competitive bidding, providing for the emergency clause, and for other purposes. Second motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Uh, Burkhart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes. SA, yes. Sudter, yes. Section three, emergency clause. The need to make this purchase as immediate and emergency is hereby declared to exist, and this ordinance shall be in full force in effect from the date of its passage and approval.

Second. A motion and a second. Roll call, please. Hook, yes. Sanchez, Patterson, yes. SA, yes. Sudter, yes. Yes. Item number six is an ordinance requesting a waiver of bid for Regaku Icon X. New business item number six, an ordinance authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with Far West in the amount of 67,128.98 for the purchase of a RIAKU Icon X Raymond Analyzer waving competitive bidding and further purposes. Second motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes. Zeba, yes.

Sudter, yes. Burkheart. Yes. Huck. Yes. Item number seven is an ordinance requesting a waiver of bid for heavy rescue stabilization equipment. New business. Item number seven, an ordinance authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement with Dixie Rescue Solutions in the amount of $45,99548 for the purchase of heavy rescue stabilization equipment waving competitive bidding and further purposes. Motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Patterson, yes. SA, yes. Sitter, yes. Birkhart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. [clears throat]

Items number eight, nine, and 10, where our consent agenda. We'll go to item number 11, which is an ordinance approving the 2026 public transit agreement with Ozark Regional Transit Service. New business. Item number 11, an ordinance waving competitive bidding for the purchase of transit service within the city of Bentonville authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an agreement not to exceed $700,327 with Ozark Regional Transit for this purchase providing for the emergency clause and for other purposes. So move

I just have one question and I was going to ask because I know she served on this. So, on the contract, I guess, yeah, Dan, um, where it says it's going to charge an additional $57.15 for the paratranscent per occurrences. So, is that included in the 700,000 or is that in a that's included in a $5,000 set aside? Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. And we can re-review that as we run out of that set aside amount to see if we want to expand that or continue it. Yeah, that yeah, that that probably needs to be reviewed regularly.

Yeah, that's what that was the thought of setting aside to 5,000 and having an ongoing amount already negotiated so it becomes a much easier discussion. Yeah. No, that's great. I was going to ask just because I missed that part of the contract in earlier conversation. That estimate was based on knowing what we've had in the past to come up with our set aside. So it should be pretty close. No, sir. That estimate was based off of combination of Fateville and Springdale's uh use of the same type of program over a year. Okay. So, and you've got a bigger footprint, so that's why it might be a little bit different. It should be pretty. Yes, sir. And the cost that was mentioned, $57 is a round trip. So, uh, is that perfect? Yes, sir. That's a round trip. Yes, sir.

Yeah. Have a motion and a second. Roll call, please. Yes. Sudter, yes. Birkhart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes. Section 4, emergency clause. The need. The need to make this purchase is immediate and an emergency is hereby declared to exist and this ordinance shall be in full force in effect from the date of its passage and approval. Second. Motion and second. Any other discussion? Hoff, please. Uh, Siba, yes. Sudtor, yes. Birkhart, yes. Hook, yes. Sanchez, yes. Patterson, yes.

Item number 12 is on consent agendas. Item number 13 is your meeting procedures resolution. New business item number 13, a resolution amending resolution number 2-13-24A, amending the procedures with regard to meetings and for other purposes. So, move. Second. We have a motion and a second. make sure you guys did did read it. We we went back and listened and we think we interpreted everything correctly. So, make sure you guys did read through that.

The only um kind of question or not really question but and I mentioned this to Nick that we included constituents that either live or work in Bentonville. You all had a long discussion but we don't actually represent the people who again when we went I went back personally and listened to it and it was pretty long discussion but at the end of that I think you all from the audio we thought the conclusion was you did want to give and on the form they tell us if they live or they work and and that's how the digital form was set up for doing that test

they don't they don't vote but they they are impacted seriously by the decision that we take. That's investing in our community. Yes. And so we also are part of that security and predictability for these businesses that they rely on. And so having their in having them be able to have a voice with that kind of investment I think is reasonable. That's why we added them into the document.

I think thank you Nick. You did a really good job of pulling everything in that we had talked about. I just had one question. There's a it says speakers will be courteous in their language and presentation. And I don't know if that was in there before. It probably was. And you know during one of our controversial things we did have a few people who were not um courteous in their language and presentation. Um is there any teeth to that? Like what do we do? Like how do we enforce that people actually do behave with decorum? There is a mixture on court decisions on at what point does it become you are targeting the speech that they're making and you're not actually being um objective and just letting them speak. So there has been mixed opinions at the court of appeals level um and Supreme Court has not necessarily picking up all these cases. So when they are directly speaking to you and they're not using words as routinely thought of to be as cuss words, there has been some court opinions that that is them just using their free speech and that is them just telling you as elected officials what their thoughts are. Um I don't recall and I apologize I'm not missing any um strong language being used and even that's gotten weakened. Um there was a Supreme Court case a few years ago that used to you couldn't trademark um offensive or over language. Well, that was decided that that actually was um a violation of freedom of speech. So even those things kind of chiseled.

So really we're asking them to pretty please yes behave in an appropriate manner, but there really isn't much we can do if they Yeah. I think it's going to be one of those gut things that you know if if if it's felt that a strong line has been crossed and that it can be um easily articulated report.

One of the things we did at the last one is I gave a statement and what we're really trying to get people to do is respect. So everybody gets three minutes we can move the conversation. So if there's a lot of things outside of someone just speaking to us, you know, I think the direction and hopefully everybody will be respectful in that because we want to move as many people through with the three minutes, right? And so if we have a lot of distractions for something that's not just somebody getting up there and talking to you, I think those are things that can come in come in to play. Um,

and it's exceedingly rare. I think it is exceedingly rare and rare and I think when we've directly addressed that and asked everybody to to speak directly to us and um in a reasonable manner and um do the three minutes they have done that and so my hope is that is what will continue to happen and I was just curious where I could step in point point of order and ask them again to please be courteous and respectful in their language. I'm not necessarily cutting them off and kicking them out. Um there can be that line there. Um kind of two different lines that you would have. Okay. Thanks. I was just curious about that. Okay. Thank you again. Have a motion and a second.

I observation. Good job. We have a motion and a second on the table in the resolution. Correct. Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? This is unanimously. Items one and two on utility board. We're on consent agenda. So we go to planning item number one which is property line adjustment lot 18 block one of Lincoln and Rice edition. Planning item number one an ordinance accepting a property line adjustment of of west 1/2 of lot 4 and east 1 half of lot 5 block one Lincoln and Rice edition creating new lot 18 block one of Lincoln and Rice edition to the city of Bentonville Arkansas and for other purposes project number PLA25-000037

second motion and a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Sudter, yes. Yes. Hook. Yes. San Dest. Yes. Yes. Item number two is a lot split of lots one and two of Daniel's place. Planning item number two, an ordinance accepting a lot split of parcel number 01-07964-060, creating new lots one and two of Danielle's place to the city of Benville, Arkansas. and for the purposes project number LS25-000037 motion and a second any other discussion roll call pleaseart yes yes

Sanchez Patterson yes sa yes sudter yes okay can I get a motion to conclude with our agenda motion and a second all in favor I I with that we do have one signed up for public comment on non-aggenda items. Thank you for your patience. You are afraid public servant.

I appreciate your time and thank you all for having me up here. Um and I will be respectful and easily [laughter] ours. So first, [clears throat] my name is Tim McDonald. I live in Rogers, but my kids go to school here in Bentonville. Um I take advantage of your fantastic parks and we go to the library all the time. Uh, so what I'm I'm here to talk to you about that, I'm going to talk to you about another coming problem that we have here in Benton County and in Bittenville as well, but I'm going to offer you a solution that doesn't cost any money. So hopefully this is a little easier to handle than what we've talked about. If if you all are not aware of this, on March 3rd of this year, so early voting starts in like three weeks, there's going to be four new circuit judges in Benton County elected. So, what that means is you're going from right now seven judges with an average of 20 years experience each to then and you're going to have eight judges with an average of six years experience each. That's because you're having three of your judges retire and they're adding a brand new position, circuit judge, division 8, which is what I'm a candidate for. So, I'm going to tell you in less than two and a half minutes now why I'm the best person for that job and what that job is really going to be. So, I've handed out the push cards. I'll have some here afterwards if anybody has any questions or wants to look at it. But I'm from southeast Missouri. My wife and I went to high school there together and I lived in that part of the country up until I went to college in St. Louis. My mom was a nurse at a hospital just so that me and my brothers could go to school there for free. After I graduated from school at St. Louis University, I went to law school at the University of Pittsburgh and I graduated there in 2007 and then I went to Washington DC where I served as a special assistant US attorney prosecuting uh drugrelated crimes. PCP, heroin, that kind of thing. I then went back to St. Louis where I spent about five years prosecuting violent homicides. Um, and ended up my career in St. Louis to come down here and raise my family next to the rest of my family. I now live across the street from my parents and down the road from my brother. And I thought I was going to take a break from doing the kind of work I had done before. Uh, that's not the plan that was there for me. What actually happened is I started

prosecuting the crimes against children case load here in Benton County. And I did that for several years. What I'm doing now is I'm running for circuit judge division 8 because division 8 is a new criminal docket. There's been an increase of people. With that comes an increase in crime. And so I think that we need somebody that has experience as a criminal prosecutor in order to fill that position. I've also been a judge advocate for over 10 years. So besides prosecuting soldiers, I've also defended soldiers when necessary in the army. I know both sides of the law from that sense. And as a just a very practical point, I I want to point something out to you all. There's been a lot of talk about the jail in Benton County, right? about how we need to expand the jail and you I know the Bentonville Police Department is saying that they're having to release people quickly because of misdemeanor citations and things like that. One way to expand the jail is to add more beds. The other way is to move the people in the jail to the Department of Corrections because the majority of people that are in your jail right now are not serving misdemeanor sentences. They're being held on felony cases and it's taking them years to get through our criminal court system. Whether you're a victim or a defendant, that's not justice when it takes two years to get that resolved. So, if we want to help unclog the system, we need a criminal judge that understands how that works. So, that's my pitch. I'll be here afterwards. I know it's late. I appreciate your all's time. And if anybody has any questions, uh, please find me here. Thank you.

Look at that. With that, we will go to committee review. on the utility board. We had an extensive discussion on the capital plan and uh that I mentioned that uh it was going to be well received by the council uh especially some who have been asking for it long time and uh it it was a very good presentation, amazing numbers uh almost $2 billion in infrastructure for water systems and and that was that was the the the same deliberation that we had last week. That's it.

Um AMP Commission Matt, hopefully you've seen some of the incredible press, like big press that we've gotten as a travel destination um in Bentonville. And that is not that doesn't just happen. That's a result of the hard work um of the communications team at uh Visit Bentonville, which brings people into our city that helps spend money and gets us sales tax dollars. So, it's a win. Um, also they're the visit Bentville offices are going to be moving into the second floor of Massie. They finally so I think it's public knowledge now. So they'll be moving more downtown which they won't have a visitor center. Yeah, because they'll be second floor but it's kind of city hall interesting. Lots of good things going on there. the public art committee met and um we're still kind of on hold for any projects until we have the policies passed. Uh we are meeting with each member of the committee is meeting with Shelley and Bonnie to go over what policy and looks like now make sure that everybody understands it because obviously it was a little bit confusing and people weren't happy with it when it was brought last time. So we should hopefully be able to bring that and be able to get on with it. Um, one of the big conversations we had was the 250 commemorative project. Um it it's been proposed that we involve school children in two basically 250 school children in doing tiles that would um be put on the the uh downtown the side of this

in between the downtown activity center and the city hall right on this yeah this side on this wall behind um on the outside

the I the the initial idea that was um recommended did was that it was something what do you love about your city? Um some of us had concern with that because it's for our our country and so um I think the the committee as a whole was good with moving forward with that as long as it's a the prompt is what do you love about the United States versus Benville since it's not specific to that bill. So that's kind of where we went with that. When you mentioned 250, I thought you were referring to the 250 anniversary of Bentonville already, which will be 100 years from way.

This is America. [laughter] Yeah. So, the tiles would be a mosaic. It would come into something that celebrates the 250th. That makes sense to everybody. Um, there is still a um a funding question on that as well. So, we do have to find money money to fund that to be able to purchase the tiles. That is something we would like to do, but we do need the funding. What kind of tiles are you looking for? So, we can talk about it now. Is it like the one they did down on the neighborhood market downtown? Um,

yeah, I think there's some options. I think there's some options. It was um something about service. and all the kids painted um like a little child. It was really cool. We're in discussion.

Yeah. And that so that is one way. There's a lot of different organizations celebrating the 250th. We did change out the banners if y'all didn't notice those. So those celebrate that. Um this is one thing the city was looking at. And then um we are looking at a um 250th picnic hopefully in the June time frame when we can open up the Dave pill park portion that's the amphitheater and do a ribbon cutting and then a 250th picnic in the new park. That's our goal with that. So depending on when that project gets done, you'll hear from us a little bit more on Yeah. And I think Yeah.

Yeah. And we so DBI already has an orchestra orchestra planned on the day because it's supposed to be

July 5th. The National League of Cities is one is encouraging cities across the US to do a they're calling a 250 potluck. But when we got into the logistics of a potluck, it was more complicated than we wanted to do. So we are going to go with a picnic in the new park. Celebrate that. you can bring your food, bring your blanket and it's a lot more easier logistically and I believe CBI already has the um amphitheater hopefully is done and activated with orchestra. So, it should be a great time. There's two things the city individually looking at or three things with the banners that we're doing. Now, I will tell you I think there are other organizations doing even bigger things than that that are coming from you. I was I was invited to a wedding a couple of years ago and the uh food was served by everybody beings at plate. [laughter]

You're not going to do that? I was like we're going to change the name maybe to a picnic versus potlike so it's not yes confusing. But I I think regardless

on July 5th that's the date that they're wanting people wanting cities to celebrate it and we're we will be in conjunction with that. uh to tag on to the AMP meeting we did have today. Um the chamber's also moving with the visibility, so they'll still be together. Uh and then there'll be a couple of letters coming to the city mayor, I think, in the morning. One is a new commissioner. Uh Trey Bazor, he owns Barcleta and the big lieutenant out by the community center. Commissioner for our approval. And then a a letter requesting that we entertain approving putting a 1% additional tax on the ballot in May. I think a lot of you are aware of that. And so that'll be coming for us to decide upon long as it goes on the agenda. But um

it's not across the board. It's just that would be for% for lodging. Yes. Yes. And that back to our earlier discussion is one way provide additional parks funding that wouldn't be an impact fee. So it's just as we think about all the mechanisms it's letting other people pay um pay for growth so to speak but out of town visitors. So that's for everyone's consideration and um that was the meeting.

Trans Landscape met last Thursday um basically talked about projects for 2026 and also the spring giveaway which it's hard to think about um planting trees in the snow, but it will be April 11th um for the um spring tree giveaway. Um and just to clarify that will that we're getting that letter that will come to you at the next council meeting. Um just a little more clarification there if the 1% would just be on logging

and there is a provision in that collects that but they do have to by that provision 20% has to feed back into the city parks or library. So yeah, and I think and we'll and we'll we'll make sure you have all that information um when it comes to you and at the end of the day it goes on the ballot and the public gets to make that decision. Yeah. And I think you know mayor I can't speak for the whole commission but I think the intention is for most of it back city. So one of you know that it's intended to help us to propel things forward not all of it but a good much more than 20%

for marketing. And I think and I think also I don't want to speak out in term but I think it could go for things like trail maintenance or trail upkeeping things that we are going to struggle to pay for probably in the future. So there's a lot of good things I think coming but at the end of the day citizens will get to vote and and it would be to put it on there is a May ballot that it can be put on it would be to put it on that ballot that that is why it has to come at the next meeting all of those times

provide a choice for I think is excellent citizens get to choose and it's also not just lodging at hotels but also short-term rentals Right. Yeah. All watching.

Okay. Um, one other update because I think y'all might have received quite a few emails on we did meet with neighborhood over there. Um, so Spriggs, Brook Haven, uh, Second and Third Street and M, I think. Um, so we're going to look at a a couple three of the roads. there were enough there to make the decision that they don't want the sidewalk. There's not enough consensus. There's two other roads um that we need to do electric upgrades and we were going to do the electric upgrades in conjunction with the sidewalk. So, we want to have a little more conversation about them. We were able to come to a consensus about the crosswalk and what needed to be fixed there. So, we're going to move forward with that. Um but it I just wanted you guys to have that um update. We've told the neighbors we will stay in touch with them and as it gets closer as we get an electric design and understanding of what that looks like, we'll go to those roads and and retalk and you know get a consensus of a sidewalk. But if they you know what we I'll be honest with you what it was it was very interesting good conversation. Um but at the end of the day, you know, if we have connectivity issue initiatives, which is what parks was trying to accomplish, there were good intentions behind it. Um but what we found is that, you know, the neighbors didn't necessarily want it. A lot of them have short driveways that you're getting into that and it's an older neighborhood. And so there's just some factors we really need to think think about and understand um as we move forward. I will also tell you the biggest thing that came from that and this is another topic on funding things. Um, at the end of the day, they told us they didn't want sidewalks, but they really needed us to address drainage in the neighborhood. And I just wanted you to

hear that from me from me because these are real issues we've got to start thinking about and putting and and and addressing. And they're hard because they cost money. I mean, so how do we find those funding sources to be able to continue to keep the quality of service and life that we have in Bentonville? So, um, and I and I, you know, Bill and I got maybe a little more heated than I would like to be today, and I apologize for that. It's just we just know how hard it is on the back end to try to manage through these things and do what's right um, for the city. And so I want you to hear that and and know and I also think you guys got probably several emails on that but I wanted you to hear we did go set with the neighbors and really talk to them and try to understand what they wanted. So

thank you. Thank you. All right with that. Thank you all. Yeah.