City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this committee meeting. We're going to have a 2026 valuation results for the city of Conway's non-uniformed employees pension plan. I'm sure this council is very well aware that at one time we were very concerned about the pension for our non-uniformed employees, which is whatever one strives for is retirement. like to thank miss mel for being part of that committee and uh some of the decisions that you as a council made has helped pull this from the brink of not being uh something that our non-uniformed employees can look forward to to something that they now can and with that was that a fair I'll open it up to Mr. Winningham.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That is true. And I'll just turn this over to Janie. This is Ms. Janie Shaw mentioned on the form there. And then Danny White is also here. They both traveled up from Dallas today. So we're very appreciative to have them with us to share this. And I'll turn it over to Janie.

Me, Tyler. Any rain with you? Unfortunately not. I wish. My grass would love some rain. Thank you, Tyler. Like he said, my name is Janie Shaw. I have Danny White here with me today. We are your actuaries. So we work for GRS. We are your consulting actuaries that we work on the pension plan. So again, we're here to talk about the pension plan today. Just kind of some background facts about your pension plan. So again, the purpose of your pension plan is to provide retirement benefits to full-time non-uniformed employees of the city. As far as the benefits, so these are for employees who are being hired today. So any employee that was hired on or after May 1st, 2018. So the monthly benefit is going to be equal to 2% of their final average monthly compensation times year of service. So they're eligible to retire at age 65 with six years of service or a little bit earlier at age 62 if the member has gotten 20 years of service or if they've had 28 years of service with the city, they can retire at any age. So in order to fund this pension plan, so to fund these pension benefits, the city contributes 10% of payroll plus some dedicated property tax proceeds and the employees also contribute 10% of pay. the non-grandfathered employees do now. So it's important to note that so that contribution effort is incredibly important to this pension plan. Think of your pension plan as kind of this big retirement plan. It's important to fund those benefits and we have this pension fund, we have this trust fund behind the pension plan in order to secure those benefits for your employees so that they know those benefits are going to be paid into the future. The high level summary of the evaluation results, I'm not gonna bury the lead here. We have great news coming at you guys today. So that's, as your actuary, it's always good to be able to come in with good news. We don't always have good news. So it's always fun to have a presentation where we do have good news. So kind of high level, our unfunded actuarial accrued liability. So essentially this is your liability that's not funded by your assets. So that's decreased to 29.3 million. as of January 1st, 2026. So that's down from 30.8 million from two years ago. So that's 3.4 million lower than we were expecting. That's really important. So that's a significant decrease from what we were expecting. Kind of drill down in those numbers a little bit more. So we were expecting that unfunded liability to increase. And essentially what that means is think about your unfunded liability as any other kind of debt. So think of it like your mortgage. So you're paying on a debt. You're paying on this debt. But essentially what that means is what we were expecting is the contributions to pay off that unfunded liability. They weren't actually paying. They were just paying off the interest. They weren't paying down the principal quite yet. So we were expecting that unfunded liability to go up. But what happened is we had some really good experience. So first, we had about a million more in contributions than we were expecting. We're going to talk about this more throughout the presentation. But where those contributions are coming from is we had a significant increase in your covered payroll. So remember, we get those 10% increases from the city and also from your employees on that covered payroll. So when you have more payroll, you're getting more contributions. That's significant. We also had investment gains. So remember that pension trust, we're investing that money. So we assume that earns 6.5% a year when we do better than that. And we have better investment gains to pay down that unfunded liability. So we had a 9.7% return in 2024, 6.8% return in 2025. So you can see we beat that 6.5% return in both years. So again, that's another 0.7 million GAIN THAT WE SAW ON THE INVESTMENT SIDE OF THINGS. SO WE ALSO SAW 1.7 MILLION LIABILITY GAIN. ESSENTIALLY WHAT THAT MEANS IS YOUR LIABILITY, WHICH IS JUST THE PRESENT VALUE OF EVERY BENEFIT WE EXPECT TO PAY OUT, AND WE'LL TALK ABOUT THAT MORE THROUGHOUT THE PRESENTATION, ESSENTIALLY THAT LIABILITY WAS LOWER THAN WE WERE EXPECTING. SO ESSENTIALLY WE'RE EXPECTING FUTURE BENEFITS TO BE LOWER THAN than what we were expecting previously. A big part of that is that salary increases. So this is going to be a little counterintuitive, but we'll drill that down. So your active members didn't quite get the salary increases that we were anticipating. And then also your members are retiring later. So We'll look at this on the next slide here. So let's look at just that top line there. So essentially when we're doing your actuarial evaluation, we're taking every member in your pension plan and we look at every member and what we're doing is we're projecting out what we expect their pension benefit to do. And so essentially we're taking out every pension benefit we think is going to be paid from your pension trust 100 years down the line. We take every dollar amount that's going to be paid out of that pension trust for every member. So it's not just your retirees who are currently getting a benefit. It also includes any members who have terminated who are going to be due a benefit in the future. It also includes your active employees who are still accruing benefits today. So we calculate, we basically project out what those members are going to be paid into the future, and we present value that. So the present value of that is about $51.8 million. That's that first number there on that line. So essentially what we're saying is that number was lower than we were anticipating. Essentially, when your members don't get the salary increases that we were anticipating, we anticipate those pension benefits are going to be a little bit lower in the future. When members retire later, those pension benefits are going to be pushed out a little bit later. So what you can see on this line is kind of the backbone of what we do when we do evaluations. We have your liability, we have your assets, and we have that unfunded liability that we are talking about. So essentially what we're doing is we're comparing our new valuation, which was as of 2026, and we're comparing it to two years ago, which was the last valuation we did as of 2024. So what we know is we know that liability number. We expect that liability number to go up each year. Why we expect it to go up? Essentially, you have active members still accruing benefits each year. So, you know, think of that. You have an active member with 10 years of service. They're going to accrue an additional 11 years, additional 12 years of service. So that's why that liability number is going to continue to go up each year. We also expect that asset number to go up each year. You know, you're getting contributions in, you're getting investment income. So we know those two numbers are going to go up. What we want to see is that the difference between those two numbers, which is that unfunded liability, that third line there on that chart, starts to go down. And that's exactly what we saw this year, and that's what we want to see. So you can see that unfunded liability going down to that $29.3 million that we saw this year. Another metric that we often talk about in terms of pension plans, it's called our funded ratio. So think of your funded ratio as essentially the percentage of your liability that's funded by your assets. For you math people, essentially that's just your assets divided by your liability. So you can see we also saw that funded ratio go up this year, which again is exactly what we want to see, that funded ratio going up to the 43.4% this year. So again, all those metrics moving in the direction we want. So kind of drilling down those numbers a little bit, we're going to talk about a big part of why those numbers moved. And again, a big story of what we're seeing in this year's valuation is going to be that covered payroll number there in the center of the screen. So you can see that covered payroll number went from about $13.3 million in 2024, and then two years later, it's about $15.5 million. So if you think about that, that's about on average about an 8% increase a year. And when we see that covered payroll number increase, it can generally increase because of two reasons. One, your active members could have gotten big salary increases, and that can increase your liability. But what we're seeing right here is it's covered payroll increases that are kind of For better or lack of a word, it's kind of pure payroll increases. And what it's really being driven by is if you look at that top line there, it's that active membership headcount. You see that active membership headcount going from 275 to 317. So essentially, we have more employees in the city of Conway. When you have those more employees, there's going to be more payroll. And when we have more payroll, there's more contributions coming into the pension plan to pay down that unfunded liability, which is really good for the pension plan. As far as the other numbers on here, you can see the number of retirees and beneficiaries we have increased to about 148 in 2026. Again, we expect the count of your retirees to continue to increase as those active members continue to retire. And then your inactive members, again, keep in mind those inactive members, those are your active employees who have terminated, but they're not yet eligible to retire. And so that stayed about the same from the last year, which is about what we expect. They're a small portion of your liability and a small portion of your population. Looking down at the bottom part of this chart, you can see this is your external cash flow. So essentially, this is the actual money in money out of your pension fund. So you can see those employer contributions up to about 1.6 million this year. So one note about 2024, the city put in an extra 1 million, which is what you're seeing in that 2.4 million there from 2024. That was really great to see that extra money that went to directly paying down that unfunded liability. So you can see if you kind of take out that $1 million, you can see those employer contributions going up from 2024 to 2026. And again, what's driving that is going to be those payroll increases that we saw. When that payroll goes up, those contributions go up. We also saw more property tax proceeds and an increase in those member contributions as well. So you can see that additional money going into the fund from what we were projecting previously. AS FAR AS BENEFITS DISTRIBUTED, THOSE ARE UP A LITTLE BIT, JUST SHY OF 3 MILLION. THAT'S PRETTY MUCH WHAT WE WERE ANTICIPATING. SO THAT'S IN LINE WITH OUR EXPECTATIONS. BEFORE I GO THROUGH SOME MORE PROJECTION OF THESE NUMBERS, I JUST WANTED TO PAUSE, SEE IF THERE'S ANY QUESTIONS FROM THE COMMITTEE. Okay, so we're going to start looking at some projections in our projected financial condition. So this is really where we're going to start seeing really what happened in this year's valuation and really where things start to change. So we did see a decrease in our unfunded liability, which is great, but really what's changed is on a forward-looking basis and a forward-looking of our financial condition. So this chart right here, essentially this is a chart of your liability and your assets on a forward-looking basis. So it looks from where we were projecting to be from 2024 from two years ago to where we're projecting us to be today from 2026. So the red line there, that's your liability number. So again, that's the liability number going forward. So you can see the solid line, that's from two years ago. The dotted line is the projection based on this updated information that we have for you today. So you can see, again, we expect that liability number to continue to increase, but you can see it's increasing a little bit slower because of those liability gains that we saw. The big difference here is going to be that green line. And so this is the projection on your assets. So again, the solid line of those assets is how we were projecting out your assets two years ago. The dotted line is going to be the projection of your assets where we're projecting it today. And the big difference there is going to be those additional contributions we're expecting because of those additional active employees we saw and the additional covered payroll. So when we get these additional employees, the additional payroll, we're anticipating additional contributions that came in. And so you can see instead of that liability and asset line kind of steadily moving together over time, they're actually starting to converge. And as your actuary, this is really what we want to see when we look at a healthy pension plan. We want to see those lines starting to converge together. And so they actually converge in about 25 years. We call that kind of a funding period. Essentially, we expect that unfunded liability to be paid off in about 25 years. So again, this is a vast improvement in the financial condition of the fund.

Because the previous evaluation had them moving away from each other, which is not good.

Exactly, exactly. which that is, of course, good news. I will caution that good news slightly. Of course, I'm your actuary. I'm here to talk to you about risk. All good news has a little bit of risk and a little bit of caution alongside of it. What I will say is, so this is the same chart we were kind of looking at before. So the solid lines are the projection that I showed you before. The two dotted lines are kind of alternate scenarios as far as your assets. So what I'll say is, The solid lines are if everything goes exactly according to plan, if your assets are in exactly 6.5% each year. We know that investment markets can be volatile. We know that sometimes things don't go according to plan. They're not always in our control. Market crashes, things like that happen. If the last five years have taught us anything, the market conditions aren't always within our control. So kind of what this is to show you is that we're actually going to be, in the next 25, 30 years, is going to be a range. So if you look at kind of the smaller dotted line, that's if we underperform on our assets as a tune of like a 4% annual return. You can see we're kind of back where we were before. Now on the flip side, the... I guess the thicker dotted line there, is if we overperform on our assets. That's if we get an annual 9% return. You can see we get to that closing down our unfunded liability a lot quicker. So that's not to say that's what we expect, but what we're probably going to see is somewhere in the middle of those two dotted lines is where we'll actually be. So kind of that's where I'm going to tell you to caution. That 25 years is great, but I will caution you that a market crash or something like that can change the outlook of the plan.

I just pulled up our April report. We get a quarterly report, and the 10-year rolling was 7.51%. Great. And just what you said, it's in that range.

This is kind of alternate funding scenarios that we've kind of talked about in the past. They're a little bit less... Relevant today, but they're just things for the committee to maybe just consider as we kind of continue talking through. Again, based on the current contributions that we're paying in and based on our current projections, you know, we're on track. But again, like I said, there are potential variations of that. And, you know, we could come back in two years and there could be a market crash and something could happen and we could get off that track again. But where we're at right now, we are currently on track with where we want to be. But this is just kind of some alternative funding scenarios just for the committee to be able to see. So again, this is the same chart that we were looking at before. So that red line and that green line is the same lines that you guys have been seeing before, that liability and those assets coming together. So the orange line there, that's if we put 12% of pay city contributions in. You can see we get to paying down that unfunded liability a little bit quicker in 20 years versus 25 years. Alternatively, if we went to more of a 20-year funding ADEC where that contribution varies versus just a flat rate of pay, you can see that's that blue line there. You can see we do still get to paying that unfunded liability off in 20 years But we do kind of pay it off a little bit quicker. And I'm going to show you why in the next chart. So this is the same chart, the same scenarios. But instead of looking at your assets and liability, this is actually the contributions in dollar amounts or in millions. So again, the green line, that's your 10% of pay contributions. You can see those go up as a dollar amount because, again, we're expecting that covered payroll to continue going up. Those 12% of pay, you can see it's higher. but still going up steadily year over year as your covered payroll goes up, it drops down sooner. So it drops down at about 20 years versus the 25 years that the green's dropping down. And then kind of you can see why on the blue, why the unfunded liability is getting paid off still in 20 years, but a little bit faster is because that ADEC forces you to put a little bit more money in up front. And then it slowly drops down over time versus kind of ratcheting up. with the percent of pay contributions. So again, just kind of some alternate funding scenarios so that the committee can see those. But again, these are just kind of some projection assumptions. We kind of already talked about these. But just kind of to close, again, there is significant improvement in the financial outlook of the plan this year. With the unfunded liability expecting to be eliminated, that's 25 years. Again, we saw the decrease in the unfunded liability. We saw the increase in the funded ratio. Those are all really great one-year metrics. But we look at it on a forward basis, seeing that unfunded liability being paid off in 20 years, that's a really great thing to see. And again, that's based on the current contribution policy, that 10% of pay contributions going in from both the member and the city. Okay. But also, again, keep in mind that other things can go that are not expected. So again, those 25 years means everything goes according to plan. Things don't always go exactly according to plan. That's why we do these reports. That's why we come back every two years to kind of see where we are on track, to kind of see where have we deviated. So we'll be back here in two years to kind of tell you, have we deviated one way or the other, to kind of tell you where we're at. So that's kind of why we do this. But that's really all I have. I'll take questions, comments from the committee.

Back on page five. This is sort of a comment, sort of a question. Those number of participants. Now, this plan, as you mentioned, On page two, we changed the plan in May of 2018. So this plan also includes employees who were in this plan under the old rules, right?

Yes.

A richer benefit. That's correct, yes. And they're included in these numbers, the 317, I assume it's a mix of someone of the old plan and someone of the new plan. That's correct, yes. I just want to remind everybody there are some people under an old, richer plan still in this and will be for quite some time.

I think and you mentioned it two years ago what we talked about is that we kind of look at number one wasn't it the interest earned on the earth oh yeah

gets moved over to add to the plan as something that would, isn't that what we do, Tyler? I think that's, yeah. So the $2 million reserve that the council set aside, the interest earned on that is moved to this plan.

Right, and that is calculated into the employer contributions.

All that.

Yeah. Could you go to, I think it was, Yeah, yeah. So I just want to point out, so in 2024, that funded ratio there, 37%, in 2024, that number was projected to gradually increase and in some years kind of fluctuate. So like in 25, it might have been projected to go to like 37.5 or maybe 38. Next year, it might have gone down. When I saw that we're at 43.4, I was... Like, that was huge. And I just want to say this is huge news. I mean, Janie's exactly correct when she talks about, you know, the market really kind of dictates what this is going to look like going forward. But these numbers here are huge. What the mayor said in his opening comments, I'll just kind of expand on that a little bit. Before any changes were made to the plan, it was expected to go broke, to run out of money. and the city would have been in a big pickle there trying to figure out what to do for those employees.

Yeah, probably a lot of it would have come out of the general fund because we would have been obligated to pay it.

Right, right. After we made those changes... It turned around. The plan was no longer expected to go broke. It was just kind of those lines were kind of both on an upward trajectory. Yes, the liability was going to keep increasing, but so were the assets. And it was not projected to run out of money, which was huge. But now that we see this projected to be fully funded, I never thought I'd see that as long as I was still working here. So thank you to the council for helping us make these changes.

Just to give some context what Tyler's talking about, so that green line right there before the changes were made would just go down to zero. That's what we were expecting before the changes were made.

I just want to say thank you to both of y'all, especially you because we work directly with you and you having the foresight to see that we needed something like this, and I'm glad we could do it. People don't realize how bad it is not to have money until you don't have money. And cutting this off before it happens is a great, great plus for us.

I'm really glad that this is a benefit we can offer to the employees. There are not many pension plans left, and... to be able to say, you know, if you stick with us, get vested, you're going to have a check coming every day for the rest of your life or every month, really. But that's huge. I'm really glad we can do that.

My last election, the guy ran against me because he wanted to get our city a retirement.

I actually thought we were getting it. Oh, wow.

And to be clear, we do not.

As we've said many times, our employees are our most important asset. They're the ones that get the work done every day. I remember when I took office in 2017, you guys already knew this was something that the city was going to have to face. And I want each of you council members to know that I appreciate you helping our city employees. And Tyler, you bringing that to the forefront. And Shelly, we just threw you on that committee and look at what you've done. I know.

Thank you to our money managers.

Thank you. And thanks for coming up from Dallas. We appreciate it. Go spend a lot of money while you're here. Okay.

I brought some cowboy gear with you. I'm the only cowboy.

GRS is a very highly respected name in this business and actuaries. So we're very appreciative to have them as our partner. And Danny's been with us from the beginning ever since we got with GRS. And then Janie came along. She's been a great addition. So we're very glad to have them.

He did some good news. Yes, he did.

And we just got the August portfolio number, which is 21,717,931 in August. Thank you all. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Thank you. 1.30. Usually. No, not the.

And we don't even get.

October. October will be.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to our 6 p.m. city council meeting. We are back on our regular schedule where the council will be meeting twice a month. We proceed each council meeting with a word of prayer and pledge of allegiance. If you would like, please feel free to join us. Mr. Hawks, could I get you to word of prayer?

Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for the opportunity to be here. We thank you for this wonderful city. Father, I pray that you'll keep your hand upon it and bless it as you have. I pray that you'll be with this meeting tonight and give us the wisdom and guidance that we need to best serve this city. We pray in Christ's holy name. Amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God.

I call this meeting to order. Ms. Hurd, would you take the roll, please?

Yes, sir. Mr. Hawkins? Here. Mr. Grimes? Here. Mr. Spergers?

Here.

Ms. Smell? Here. Mr. Ledbetter? Here. Mr. Hawks? Here. Mr. Jones?

Here.

Ms. Isby? Here.

Okay. You should have received a copy of the minutes from the August 25, 2026 City Council meeting. Any corrections, changes, or comments?

And I think we also have a meeting for September 3rd, and I'll make a motion to accept both of those. Second.

I have a motion and a second to accept the minutes from August 25th and September 3rd of 2026. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? This is eight to zero. All right. We'll start with the Public Service Committee. We'll start with consideration to approve waiving all three readings for ordinances on the September 8, 2026 City Council Agenda.

One thing. Well, go ahead. I have a question. Go ahead. Second. Mr. Finkenbinder, of these seven items listed here, which one would you say, or which ones would you say fall under the permanent status and would need to be waived versus ones that don't?

So the only ordinance on the agenda tonight that would qualify as an ordinance of a general or permanent nature, subjecting it to the three readings statute would be the last one. The ordinance to rezone property located at 113 Conway Boulevard.

And that one has gone through the planning commission, two other city council meetings, and this would be the third city council meeting because it was presented at the last meeting, but we tabled it. Is that right?

Yeah, and I think all rezones go through the Planning Commission.

Right, right. Okay. I just wanted to, we get a lot of questions about waiving the readings, and so I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page about which ones are, which ones we should be waiving and which ones we don't have to.

I will be able to answer that question at the beginning of each and every council meeting from here on out.

Great.

Well, Shelly, I would say we get a few questions, not a lot.

A few, yes.

We have a motion and a second to approve waiving three readings tonight. Any further discussion?

Just a comment, Mr. Mayor. I've heard the feedback on this, and I tend to agree that if it's something that's going to be general and permanent, that we should let it be read three times. I think moving forward, there will be times that I am not in favor of waiving the three readings given on C1 here. that this has been heard multiple times, I'm good with it tonight because there's been notices sent for public hearing, planning commission, multiple times at council. There's been ample opportunity here. So I'm good with it.

Ms. Mail. Ms. Mail.

Ms. Heard. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

That passes eight. Thank you for your question, Ms. Mail.

All right.

Next up is an order to appropriate funds to accept the low bid for the Don Owens Concessions Building for the Parks and Recreation Department. We have Mr. Thames here to talk about this.

Good evening, Council. So this is a project that we're really excited about. I know that we've mentioned it quite a few times in here, and it's getting close to kicking off. As you can see, the renderings of the complex on each side of me, we think that this is going to fall in line with Conway Station and City of Colleges and the atmospheres that those provide. So with this, we had good turnout. We had 11 bids or proposals put in, but we'd like to enter into an agreement with Stephen Hay Construction as the low bid. That amount came out to $2.589, $771.50. And with this, I believe there is going to be an addendum to it. We already have $2 million appropriated. So what this is, is we're just adding $589,771.50 from the advertising promotion account back into the account that's already got the $2 million in it for construction. Okay.

Yeah, so what I will need from the council is a motion to amend the ordinance as stated with the $589,771.50 also being appropriated. It will go to account number 255.140.5904. Does that sound right, Mr. Thames?

Yes, sir. Second.

I have a motion and a second to amend this ordinance as stated. Any further discussion? Did I hear appropriately these are A&P funds? Yes, sir. Okay. It's heard.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Passes 8-0. Now I'll take a motion to approve the ordinance appropriating funds and accepting the low bid for the Don Owens. So moved.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve the ordinance appropriating funds and accepting the low bid for the Don Owens bathroom and concession stand with the amendment. Any further discussion?

Andrew, is there any...

timeline estimate i mean you know we're gonna ask sure sure um if it was up to me be done tomorrow um but realistically i think our hope is to start demolition maybe by the end of this month early october and then we're pushing for a final deadline maybe a ribbon cutting um towards the spring of next year just fyi my wife talked me into going out there and

walking with her, and I don't know what I was thinking, but I did. And we both commented on how clean you guys keep the Don Owens complex. It looks really nice.

Thank you.

Good job.

Thank you.

Ms. Hurd. Mr. Spergers.

Aye.

Mr. Hawkins. Yes. Ms. Mell. Aye. Mr. Jones.

Yes.

Mr. Hawks. Yes. Ms. Isby. Yes. Mr. Ledbetter. Yes. Mr. Grimes.

Aye. That passes eight to zero.

Thank you, Anna. What number is this? I'm sorry.

It was 02653. Oh, 53. Thank you.

Thank you, Anna. Next, we have an ordinance appropriating funds for the replacement of the HVAC unit district court. Spencer Claus is here in council. This was one of those emergency situations. We all know how hot it has been. The HVAC unit went out in district court. The judges had to move, and I would like to thank Alan Dodson and his staff. They were able to work with the judges over at the building over by the old YBMA to get them some court space, but they were in a pinch, and so we went ahead and had it fixed. What I understand, they showed up Wednesday of last week and got it running. Is that correct?

That's right. Yes, sir. You covered it all. It was 607 outside, even at night. And this AC was old. And it just gave up the ghost. We did everything we could to try to... find a solution outside of replacement. That's all there was. So we collected these quotes, went with Jeremy Hayes and Hayes HVAC. They did a fantastic job, really easy to work with. And so I'm here today to get some money appropriated out of the general fund to the tune of $221,790.89 and put that in district court's building maintenance fund to get this paid for.

I understand the work's already done?

Work's already done, correct.

So y'all just hope that we're voting yes? Is this typical?

It was an emergency situation, and I made the decision to move forward with this, because I don't know if you've ever been to court over there, but it's hot in there without any air conditioning.

Yeah, I'm not questioning the need for it. I'm just questioning the approval after it's been done.

I approved it, hoping y'all would back me up on it. Well, thank you.

Well, given the difference in the quotes, it makes sense.

Ms. Hurd, just a point of clarification. Looking at our minutes, it shows number 5 as that ordinance was 02653, which was passed on the 25th of August.

Well, you're right. I forgot to advance that number, so that would be 02654. Right. Okay. Thank you. My mistake. That's okay. That's fine.

Thank you, Ms. Isby.

I'm confused now.

Any other questions, counsel? I would take a motion if somebody would move.

In the emergency clause.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve this ordinance in the emergency clause for funds for replacement of the HVAC unit at district court. Any further discussion? Ms. Hurd.

This is 02655. Mr. Grimes?

Aye.

Mr. Jones?

Yes.

Ms. Mill? Aye. Aye. Mr. Ledbetter? Yes. Mr. Spurgers? Aye. Mr. Hawks? Yes. Ms. Isby? Yes. Mr. Hawkins? Yes. And the emergency clause. Mr. Grimes?

Aye.

Mr. Jones?

Yes.

Ms. Mell? Aye. Mr. Ledbetter? Yes. Mr. Spurgers? Aye. Mr. Hawks? Yes. Ms. Isby? Yes. Mr. Hawkins?

Yes. Those both pass 8-0. And Judge Hogue did reach out to thank you all for helping them. They were in a pinch. So thank you, counsel.

Thank you, Spencer. Thank you for being done.

Thanks, Spencer. You did a great job. Next up is an ordinance for public safety. It's an ordinance appropriating reimbursement funds from various entities for the Conway Police Department. Chief Harris. Good evening, counsel.

As you'll see on there, the $113,000 is kind of out of the norm for us as far as to put it back. But just to let you all know, that was probably roughly around $72,000 paid back in overtime for off-duty officers for the Hendricks Police. so we're just requesting that these reimbursement funds be placed back into their respective accounts.

Make a motion. Make a motion for the adoption of the ordinance. Excuse me, 02656.

Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the ordinance appropriating reimbursement funds from various entities for the Conway Police Department. Any further discussion? How much fun did y'all have with that? A lot.

It wasn't really bad, to be honest with you. Once we got everything figured out, when we figured out that the scheduling wasn't a schedule, then.

Mr. Hawkins, I had to see what the definition of a streamer was. I struggle. Me too. Ms. Hurd.

Mr. Ledbetter. Mr. Grimes. Mr. Hawkins. Yes. Mr. Jones.

Yes.

Ms. Mill. Yes. Aye. Ms. Isby? Yes. Mr. Hawks? Mr. Spurgers?

Aye. That passes eight to zero. Thank you, Chief. Next up, we have an ordinance accepting grant proceeds from Homeland Security Grant for the Conway Fire Department. Chief, is this your bomb squad? Yes, sir.

Okay. This is the annual grant we get from the federal government, 100% reimbursable. This year, the amount we're receiving is $267,500, and we're just asking for your acceptance.

Make a motion.

Second.

I have a motion and second to approve this ordinance to accept grant proceeds for the Conway Fire Department Bob Squad. Any further discussion?

Mr. Hawks? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Ms. Mill? Aye. Mr. Hawkins? Yes. Mr. Grimes? Aye. Mr. Spurgers?

Aye.

Mr. Ledbetter? Yes. Ms. Isby?

Yes. That passes 8-0. Chief, you're up again. Ordinance appropriating funds and insurance proceeds for the Conway Fire Department.

Mayor on that previous there was an emergency clause Is the emergency clause need to be I'll make a motion for the emergency clause I'm sorry It's not I didn't I didn't see it.

It's been removed You need one Yes, okay, I'll make a motion for the emergency clause second

We have a motion. You've already passed the motion, so you make a new motion. You can vote to undo the vote that you just did, put the motion back on the table, and then make a motion to amend. If that passed, then you could vote on the amended motion.

So we need to. The vote to amend it, and then if the amendment passes, then we go back and vote for the whole thing with the amendment again.

Correct, because you haven't voted on the amendment yet. I move to amend the amendment. Thank you.

A vote to undo what we just did. So I would vote to revoke the vote that we just made. Make a motion for that.

Second. We have a motion and a second to revoke our previous vote on the bomb squad. Any further discussion? Ms. Herzberg.

In favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Passes eight to zero.

I'll make a motion for adoption of the ordinance with the emergency clause.

We have a motion and a second to adopt this ordinance with the emergency clause. Any further discussion?

Do we actually need to first vote to add the emergency clause, or will this do it?

Yeah, you need to vote to amend it because it's not on the agenda. So you would vote to amend the motion. We just did. Okay. If that passed, then you could vote on the amended motion. That would be the main motion now. Which includes the emergency clause.

And so moved to amend the motion to add the emergency clause. Then we'll vote on the motion.

Second. I hope everybody out there is following.

We've already done that. We've already done that.

Yeah, we've already done that. We've already done that, yeah.

We're ready for the vote. Okay, so I...

So now we're voting to approve the...

Okay, so I know I'm the wrong guy to ask about this, but I think here's what we need to do. You've already voted to revoke the one. We've made a motion to amend it to include the emergency clause. Now we just need to vote on the overall ordinance with the emergency clause.

That's fine. We did it in backwards order, though, didn't we? We amended it before we reversed it. Should we have reversed it before we amended it? Should we amend something we didn't have?

I thought we revoked it and then we had a new motion.

I think y'all voted to revoke the prayer first. Then you voted to amend the motion that basically got brought back forth before the council. So you've taken care of that. Now you would have a vote to approve the amended motion and then a vote on the emergency clause.

Just so everybody that's watching at home will understand what's going on is the fire chief brought a an ordinance to the city for the bomb squad. And in that, he needed the emergency clause to be invoked so that funds, so that he could go ahead and apply for this and make sure that they hit everything in a timely manner. The question that was raised, the chief didn't need to go ahead and do it. The question was raised as to how do we go about this? Mr. Finkenbinder explained it. And the council went back, revoked their previous vote, and they have since then voted to amend the ordinance with the emergency clause, which brings us back to we are now at the vote for this ordinance with the emergency clause included. We have a motion and a second to accept. Without any further discussion, I will turn it to Ms. Hurd.

Mr. Hawks? Yes. Mr. Jones?

Yes.

Ms. Mill? Aye. Mr. Hawkins? Yes. Mr. Grimes? Aye. Mr. Spergers?

Aye.

Mr. Ledbetter? Yes. Ms. Isby? Aye. Yes. And the emergency clause, Mr. Hawks? Yes. Mr. Jones?

Yes.

Ms. Mill? Aye. Mr. Hawkins? Yes. Mr. Grimes?

Aye.

Mr. Spergers? Aye. Mr. Ledbetter? Yes. Ms. Isby? Yes.

Those both pass 8-0. You know what's scary when I can explain something, Mr. Hawkins?

I was impressed.

Y'all didn't think I ever listened, did you? Next up is an ordinance appropriating funds and insurance proceeds for the fire department. Chief?

I'll try to make this a little bit easier. Thank you. We've received three checks, two donation checks, one check from insurance, one of the checks, 1,094 from HARPS donation check, a check from Centennial Bank for 5,000 for fire prevention materials used in October, and the last is a check from insurance proceeds for 1,251. Appears to be an accounting ordinance. It is. I'll make a motion for adoption. Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve this ordinance, appropriating funds and insurance proceeds for the Conway Fire Department. Any further discussion?

I believe this is 02658. Yes. Mr. Hawkins?

Yes.

Mr. Ledbetter? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Mr. Grimes? Aye. Mr. Spergers? Aye. Mr. Hawks? Yes. Ms. Isby? Yes. And Ms. Milne? Aye.

That passes 8-0. then finally chief we have an ordinance to approve the purchase of two fire engines for the conway fire department and this did go through the uh our co-op correct yes sir okay and would you explain so that people who are watching at home could give help them to understand on how we use the co-op for purchasing things like this so to put it simply instead of us as a city or an entity going out and trying to bid this product

We go through HGAC, a cooperative purchasing that has already done all that for us. So that's just real briefly, that's how that works. We go through them and they say, here's the price that's already been negotiated, the best price there is. It's yours.

It's worked quite well for us.

Is Mr. Winningham still here?

Yeah, slipped out the back. Anyway, one of the first conversations that Chief and I had was with Chief Mr. Winningham, and he is confident that the funds are available there and it will not impact other things going forward because it will come out of our new sales tax.

This seems like a really good price for two. Is it?

I don't know, Mayor.

If you'll say it fast, Shelly, it sounds believable.

Well, no, I mean, we have, you know, over $2 million for one.

And that was, yes, this is a pumper truck, just like a regular fire engine. Yeah, the other was a ladder.

It only has three tires on this one.

What kind of delivery date are you looking at, Chief? 28 to 32 months. Wow. And this is replacing a 2013 model and a 2014 model.

Again, to the people of Conway who voted for the sales tax for police and fire and streets in Seahawk, thank you.

Thank you. All right, council, back to you. Yes, sir, please, so we can get on the list.

The first amended.

Yeah, is it in the ordinance right now? And there would need to be a motion to amend this ordinance to add the emergency clause. If that passed, then you would proceed to vote on the main motion.

I make a motion to amend this ordinance to include an emergency clause.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to amend this ordinance to include the emergency clause. And I do understand that because they're sucking up fire trucks as fast as they can make them everywhere.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Passes 8 to 0.

Make a motion to approve the ordinance number?

59. 59.

With the emergency clause.

With the emergency clause.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve this ordinance to purchase two fire trucks with the emergency clause. Any further discussion? Ms. Hurd.

Ms. Mell. Aye. Mr. Ledbetter. Aye. Mr. Grimes? Aye. Mr. Hawks? Yes. Mr. Spergers?

Aye.

Mr. Hawkins? Yes. Mr. Jones?

Yes.

Ms. Isby? Yes. And the emergency clause, Ms. Mill? Aye. Mr. Ledbetter?

Yes.

Mr. Grimes? Aye. Mr. Hawks? Yes. Mr. Spergers? Aye. Mr. Hawkins? Yes. Mr. Jones?

Yes.

Ms. Isby? Yes.

Those both pass 8-0. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Mayor. The last item is an ordinance to rezone property located at 113 Conway Boulevard from S1 and R2A to R2. Ms. Tucker is here.

Good evening, counsel. Yes, this is the third time we've had this in here, but Mr. Johnson is here tonight to speak. On the issue, and quite frankly, he is perfectly fine with R2A. I think that there was some confusion when he made his application. Somebody else was actually doing the portal for him. And so you would have to do it in your motion, but amend the motion for the S1 part of this property to be rezoned R2A. The front half of it's already there.

And that's kind of, to refresh everybody's memory, kind of reverting it back to what it was before it was.

Well, it's actually, the lot will be bigger than what it originally was way back in the, I mean, I say 1900s, early 1900s. They were 50-foot lots, but this would be 100-foot.

This was originally R2A, right?

I gave everybody a map from our zoning map, and this kind of shows you that entire neighborhood, which is still a very contributing part of Oconway, was R2A. And basically, when CBC bought up all these properties, I think it's our suggestion, go ahead and rezone it S1 for your institutional needs. Well, they're not going to use it for institutional, so... There are places for R2, even old places for R2, but this, in my opinion, is not a place for R2 going forward. Drive by this area sometime and you'll see. Anyway, do we need to just amend this to, what do we need to do, Ann?

Make a motion to approve with the amendment that the S1 portion be rezoned to R2A. It's kind of like a who's on first up here tonight, isn't it? Does that make sense?

Yes. Okay. Do you want us to hear it first, or are you ready for a motion?

It's up to you. If you have questions of the applicant, he's here, Mr. Johnson.

I think we've talked it to death. Would you say, Spencer? So I would make a motion to amend this ordinance to rezone to R2A.

I have a motion and a second to amend this ordinance to approve R2A. Any further discussion?

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Passes 8 to 0.

Ms. Hurd, what ordinance number?

That was to amend the motion.

Oh, that was to amend. OK. I'm sorry.

I'll be quiet.

Now we need to approve the amended ordinance.

And that number is 60, Ms. Hurd? Is that right? Yes. So I would make a motion for the adoption of ordinance 026-60. Second.

I have a motion. I'm sorry. I have a motion and a second to approve this ordinance with the amendment. Any further discussion? Yes, sir.

I just had to ask. So the council waived the three readings. I think you voted. We did.

That's a good question.

In theory, would it? Amend an ordinance and the three readings hadn't been waived, would it restart the three reading clock?

Probably. I mean, to be technically compliant with the statute, if the council decided not to waive the three readings, if there was any amendment and you've already had one or two, I think that technically to comply with the law, unless you waived it, you'd have to start over again.

Got it.

Thanks. It's heard. Mr. Jones? Yes. Ms. Mell? Aye. Mr. Hawkins? Yes. Mr. Grimes? Aye. Mr. Spergers?

Aye.

Ms. Isby? Yes. Mr. Ledbetter? Yes. Mr. Hawks? Yes.

That passes 8-0. Council, thank you, Ann. The next council meeting is the same evening as the Faulkner County Fair, so my recommendation is that we scoot our council meeting back. You have two choices. It's entirely y'all's choice. We can not meet in two weeks, which I think we probably should. There's so much business going on now. Or we can scoot our meeting back to about 6.30. That should give downtown streets time to open up.

I have to be back in Little Rock at 7.30 that night. So I leave late. But if that's what works for everybody else, I will be here.

Okay.

6.30 work for everybody?

Yes, sir, Mr. Jones.

I don't know if 6.30 would be late enough to get you in here.

Mark, you were on the phone. What time do they start at 5 now? You were too?

I'm just talking about getting... I'm just talking about getting here to the building. Yeah, and people leaving by the end.

Could we just do the next week and do the 29th?

The next day.

I was going to say, I'll be out of town the 29th.

We can move it to Monday or we can move it to Wednesday or Thursday, it's up to you guys.

Monday would also work for me.

I have a conflict on Monday, the 24th, already scheduled.

How about Wednesday? Wednesday is church night for my family and I. I won't be available Wednesday. Okay. What about Thursday? Can't do Thursday. Well, y'all want to bump back to 7 p.m.?

Let's do that. I'll ask Felicia to...

If we do seven, that would mean I would not be here.

But it's still going to be on Tuesday, right? Okay. I was just making sure that we weren't interfering with HTC or anything. Yeah, okay.

I had reached out to Mr. Finkenbinder just because we're starting to see the political signs and stuff be put up. And so I know previously he'd kind of... given us highlights about what's appropriate, where to put political science, where not to put political science. So hopefully you can, um, through that again.

Yeah. So the, the rules on this and Conway have changed. There used to be, I believe a 10 day rule. There was, I cannot find a rule that, that started basically when you could first put your signs out political signs. But I believe that there did used to be a rule in Conway by ordinance that, um, Whenever you did put your signs out, they had to come down 10 days after the election. I believe that that's the case. When the sign code was revised, I think it was in 2006 or 2009, that part of the sign code ordinance dropped out.

I think almost everything related to political signs dropped out.

A lot of it was changed. What's still true, though, is that political signs are treated like any other signs when it comes to being put on public right-of-way, for example. It's considered a temporary sign using connection with the local, state, national election or referendum. The limitations are it can't be placed on any highway property. That's a state rule. 100 feet from polling locations cannot be placed on government vehicles. And then their state election law requires that political signs have something on them indicating who paid for the sign. But there are no rules right now in Conway that tell someone when they can put up political signs and when they have to take them down. It's just about where they can be placed.

And to get permission from any private property owners to put political signs.

Always. Yeah, for any sign. If you put your sign in somebody else's yard without their permission, you could get in trouble.

Or their property. Yeah.

POAs.

Some POAs do not allow political signs.

Mm-hmm.

And I think they might lose in court on that one, but yeah.

Counsel, if there's anything else, we will meet at 7 p.m. on the 22nd. And with that, I will take a motion to adjourn.

Thank you.