City Council - Regular Meeting

Give me a hard time. Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's Greenwood City Council meeting on this Monday.

September the 14th, 2026 at 7 p.m. Ms. Derry, would you call the roll, please?

Yes. A.C. Brown?

Here.

Ralph Meeker?

Here.

Tim Terry? Here. Roger Rainwater? Here. Steve Tedford? Here. Rod Powell? Here. There's a quorum.

Thank you very much. If everyone would please rise, we'll begin our meeting tonight with a prayer by Nick Coleman, Greenwood Free Will Baptist, followed by our Pledge of Allegiance. I believe Truth 54 is going to lead us tonight. Is that okay with Truth 54? Okay.

Let's pray together. God, we are thankful for the day, thankful for your many blessings that you have given to us. Thank you for life and for health. Lord, thank you for the city of Greenwood that you've allowed us to live in. Thank you for the nation that you have blessed. And Lord, we just thank you for these people that are here tonight. We pray, Lord, that you would just bless tonight's meeting. We do as your scripture has commanded us. And Lord, we raise up our leaders to you. We ask, Lord, that you give them wisdom as they make decisions for our community. And Lord, we just ask that you would continue to bless our town. Lord, again, we thank you for all that you have done for us. But most of all, we thank you for the sacrifice of your son that you gave to us. Thank you for the gift of salvation that we have through his life, death, and resurrection. Lord, we praise you in those things here tonight. We ask that your will would be done in our lives and here in our town. We give you the praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

and justice for all.

Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you, Troop 54, for doing that, and good to see you guys here. Thank you for coming. At this time, I would ask the council to consider approval of the minutes for the August 3rd, 2026 regular city council meeting.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Second. I think you have a motion and a second.

Mr. Brown? Yes. Mr. Meeker? Yes. Mr. Terry? Yes. Mr. Rainwater? Yes. Mr. Tedford? Yes. Mr. Powell? Here.

Yes.

Sorry.

Thank you. We have a couple of bid openings to get out of, not to get out of the way, but I guess we need to get them out of the way. So I would, Ulmer Bridge Repair Project, Michael Wagner. Or Mikkel Griffin, I'm sorry. Misspoke, I am so sorry. That's true, that's true.

This is the Ulmer Bridge. Yeah, that's it right there. I think it's right here.

with nickel griffin and i will proceed with the bid opening there are two bid openings one from steve beam construction and one from cameron hubbs construction i will start with steve beam is the mic on oh i think so you're having trouble hearing me there you go sorry about that you're good The bid bond is present. Addendum four and previous are acknowledged. The total bid amount is $143,000, excuse me, $143,889.50. It's $143,889.50. Was that Steve Bean construction? Yes, sir. All right. Maybe if I don't want to use the camera, oops. This is Cameron Hubs Construction. The bid bond is present. Acknowledgement of addendum one through four is available. The total bid amount is $148,980. I repeat, total bid amount is $148,980. I'm sorry, who is that contractor? That is Cameron Hubs Construction.

Cameron Hubs?

Yes.

Thank you.

Would you like to have any kind of a motion for it?

Yeah. I make a motion to allow the mayor to enter in the contract and award the bid to the apparent lowest bidder. Second. Which is Steve Beam Construction.

Motion. Second.

Mr. Brown? Yes. Mr. Meeker? Yes. Mr. Terry? Yes. Mr. Greenwater? Yes. Mr. Jefford? Yes. Mr. Powell? Yes.

All right. Thank you, gentlemen. And Mr. Derry, thank you. The next bid opening is Center Street Sidewalk Project Phase 2A, Crafton Tunnel.

Yes, sir.

My name is Mike Stevens. I'll be representing Crafton Tunnel tonight. We have two, three, four bids. There's one on top from Forsgren. Denim one is attached. The board's going to like to give you a book. Bedbond is attached. bid in the amount of three hundred seventy five thousand nine hundred ninety seven dollars three hundred seventy five thousand nine hundred ninety dollars nine hundred and nine nine hundred ninety seven I'm sorry who was that This bid is from Steve Beam Construction. Bid bond is present. There is no acknowledgment of the addendum. I have to recommend that we put this one aside.

Is that disqualified? Yes. Because there's no acknowledgment that was required?

OK. Getting on the same project as the rest. This bid is from Rowan and Sons Contractor, LLC. Addendum is present.

Bid bond is present.

bid in the amount of $287,000 even. That's 287-000.

You say Rowan and son?

Rowan. Rowan, R-O-W-A-N. Lastly, we have Goodwin and Goodwin. Bid bond is present. Addendum 1 is present. Acknowledgement. bid in the amount of $363,416. That's $363,416. Thank you, sir.

I'll make a motion we allow the mayor to enter into contract as the parent lowest bidder. And I think that was Rowan and Sons. I have a motion and a second.

Was that a ten second?

Yes.

Mr. Brown?

Yes.

Mr. Meeker? Yes. Mr. Perry? Yes. Mr. Rainwater? Yes. Mr. Tedford? Yes. Mr. Powell?

Yes.

It's unanimous.

And could you tell me again, refresh me, what the scope of the sidewalk is? Is that from the caboose or...?

Yeah, Hunter, you wanna, Hunter's been working on this hard, so, I mean, I know it, but I'm gonna let him tell you real specifically.

Council this sidewalk is going to begin at governor bass little and then go west to approximately the Transmission shop tax office on the north side. It's about half of what was originally phase two In order to get the cost into what we could manage for this section. We cut the project directly in half You say to the tax office Yes. Is it Basham? Yeah, past Basham. And then the Gold Gem and Pond, I think, is where it terminates the green structure. OK.

In the contract, what was the start date or the start time?

I'm not aware yet.

OK. Mr. Kraftenthal?

Do you know approximately start date? Was any of that listed? We were happy to get the bid. That was a major milestone in this project.

Yeah, it was huge. This took a long time, and I want to credit Hunter and Sonny both, the office back there, for working really hard on this. And I'm sure Jeff had some input, too, and you guys working together. So this has been a long time coming, even though we had to cut it in half due to cost. But this is huge for the city, getting that sidewalk.

This is part of street aid. Or is this totally on us?

This was a TAP grant.

TAP grant?

Yeah. From how? 2020. Yeah. Is this 50-50? 75-25. 75-25, OK. Tom will disagree when all the final numbers are penciled out, but.

OK. So will this include a bridge on the side of the highway?

center street no no no pedestrian bridges no we'll have to attack that later or address that later yeah separate separate project phase we are uh allowing for access to the trail from the sidewalk which you can then access back around to denver street and where we have existing infrastructure

Any more questions? Thank you, Hunter. Appreciate you. Thank you, gentlemen.

Jeff, could I request that you make sure they get my information to email me the bid tabs? Thanks.

All right, thank you very much. Thanks just to get both of these projects started. Like I said, it's been a long time coming on the sidewalk for sure. Recognitions and acknowledgments. Got a few here listed. Coach Gill won his first home game as the new head coach in Greenwood, and that continued the 78 straight home game winning streak, which is amazing. Four merit semifinalists at Greenwood High School, made national, I believe. Greenwood High School recognizes U.S. News Best High School. I think there were a few others named, but we know that we're the best of the best, so that goes without saying. But anyway, congratulations to all those folks, and I'm sure, is there anything else I'm missing?

Councilman Terry, you typically know.

All I care is about the football game.

I hear you. Okay, I didn't fail to mention, I was reminded by Bob Purvis, our Chamber Director a while ago, that it's the 212th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner. I asked Bob if he wanted to lead us, and he said no. okay okay okay all right okay well moving on committee reports several have been turned in I don't think we got everybody in but water only one missing so if you don't see something that you need to know council please let us know myself or Danielle we'll get we'll get that report to you but otherwise it's on your tablet I don't guess there's anybody from those commissions here that wants to speak. I don't see anybody from any of those commissions. Okay. Moving on. Citizens Forum. Time of the meeting. We have several signed up this evening. It goes like this. You have five minutes to speak. When you come to the microphone, please state your name, your address, and then you can address the council with whatever issue that you have tonight. So Mr. Dunn, you're up first.

My name is Wade Dunn. I live at 2734 Old Chisholmville Road. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Greenwood City Council. I'm here tonight because you were elected to represent something greater than any single program or any single budget line item. You were elected to uphold the Constitution and to serve the citizens of this city. We should not wait for a court case to fulfill what the Fourth Amendment already mandates. The Fourth Amendment is clear and requires no creative interpretation. It protects the people against unreasonable searches. When a system photographs every vehicle that drives past it, stores those images, and builds what Flock calls pattern of life profiles and heat maps of our movement, it constitutes a warrantless search of our privacy. Yes, that's what Flock does. Our privacy is not privilege granted by the government. The Constitution guarantees it against government overreach. Think about this. Modern semi-automatic firearms and AR-15s did not change the meaning of the Second Amendment. Similarly, new technology does not alter the words or the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. I've heard the argument that Flock is cheaper than their competitors. My concern is that low price does not tell the whole story. I believe, this is my belief, and I've seen it in a lot of research that I've done, I believe Flock's Real Business is in the data itself. They claim they do not sell our data, yet their contract gives them the right to use and distribute it as they see fit anywhere in the world and forever. These words are in the contract that you did not vote to accept. Once that data leaves our control, whether it's seven days or 30 day, the retention period really becomes meaningless. I believe the creative language in the contract gives Flock access to use our data after those days pass for whatever purpose their business requires. is flocked using these systems as Trojan horse, a public safety tool that also gathers continuous location data on people's movement that can be monetized to sell to retailers, insurance companies, and other commercial interests. Many think so, and so do I. I'm not asking this council to abandon every tool that helps law enforcement. There are some legitimate uses of ALPRs when they're employed correctly. A better approach would be a system that only retains images when there's an actual alert below or warrant. Companies such as SightHound and perhaps ReCore provide systems built on this principle. Deleting ordinary traffic and keeping identifiable records only when there's a specific lawful reason. Again, those alerts. So tonight as a city council, I'm asking you to take a clear step I'm asking you to vote to cover the existing flock cameras immediately and then direct the police department staff to find a provider whose contract and technology do not retain images or commercialize the daily movements of the citizens of Greenwood. You do not need a lawsuit to protect the fourth amendment. You only need the will to honor the oath that you took. Please vote to restore the protection for the people you represent. One more point. Flock has a clause in their contract that limits their liability against lawsuits to just one year's worth of invoices, which in Greenwood, I think that'd be a little bit less than $100,000. It seems like that's a very small amount concerning citizens' privacy. Additionally, I would like to hear tonight from the police chief regarding whether other entities, Greenwood schools, have blanket access to this data, or is there a process in place to control who in these other entities can see that data? And then how is that outside process audited? There's some confusion on my part. I look on the website, the portal, and it says the only other agency that has access is agreeing with school systems. It did list about 80 or 90 people when we last was here, so I'd like to know if that has been eliminated, including the federal government. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Next on the list is Mr. Buddy Lloyd.

Buddy Lloyd, 305 Twisted Oak Way, Greenwood, Arkansas. I'm here with a different note. We have began moving into our new building. and I'm speaking on behalf of the Greenwood Masonic Lodge to say thank you to the City Council of Greenwood. Whenever we first started this journey, you guys reached out your hand to help us, and we certainly do appreciate that. This past week, we received the first check, which was promised to us by RDOT. And a special thanks to our state representative, Lee Johnson. Lee stepped up, went to R-DOT, and R-DOT made sure they come through with us. Not only is 110 Main fixing to be our home, but it's also the home of Troop 54. So whenever we have a ribbon cutting, we want to ask all of you to come by, take a look at it. As far as I know, there's no flock cameras here. But we are saying thank you. Thank you for what you did. The Troop 54 room is looking good. We still have a little ways to go, but we're gonna get there. We plan on having our first meeting next month. Thank you, Rod, for what you've done. Thank you, City Council, for what you've done. and I'm not gonna stay if I'm gonna waddle out. Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.

I had a, Jeff's, I couldn't read this, it's marked out, is that correct? Jeff Hooten, maybe, or Jeff? Anyway, it looks like it's marked out. So next on the list is Terry Smith.

Thank you.

I'm here representing Stone Oak Homes.

Name and address, please. What?

Name and address, please, for the record. Terry Smith, 3533 Old Chisholm Road, Greenwood, Arkansas. Thank you. I'm here representing Stone Oak Homes. We build houses in Greenwood. We've been building about 25 years. It was brought to my attention, I guess, actually, or Hayden. Hayden's the builder. I'm just the... helper, partner, that the city council passed an ordinance that we were unaware of about sidewalks. So we built about 10 houses at the Coba Ashbury. Every time we get our building permit, it's $100 sidewalk fee. We pay it, get our building permit. Well, this time we went for our COO, but let me back up a little bit. So during the building process, start back. get our building permit, $100 charge, start our construction, and then while we are actually framing, Hunter comes by to talk to Hayden, visit, whatever, and he mentions this new ordinance about the sidewalk fee. And we kind of discussed a little bit. We're like, well, I mean, there's no sidewalks out here. Why would we put a, we're not gonna have to pay for that. So finish our house, sell it to some people who don't want a sidewalk in the yard because there's no sidewalks out there. And we're told that we have to come to this meeting to get to have maybe a variance or something like that. to see what we need to do about the sidewalk. Obviously, there's no sidewalks in the neighborhood. I did read the ordinance which says it requires a five foot sidewalk. Well, there's not any five foot sidewalks in Greenwood. They're all three foot. Even the new ones on the new bypass are three foot or maybe four, are they five? They don't look that high, but anyway. Are the ones that y'all have five foot, Jamie? Okay, sheesh, that's bad. Anyway, we don't wanna put a sidewalk in. We don't wanna have to pay to put a sidewalk, or we're not putting a sidewalk in, so we would like you guys to reevaluate things for places that don't have sidewalks. Can anyone talk to me, or?

Yeah, absolutely, council can respond if you want.

Is this related to item seven?

Yeah, but I didn't want to stay for the talk.

So you're in the public forum and it looks like there's a discussion on seven, but let me make sure I completely understand you.

Yes.

He's requiring you to build a sidewalk or is he requiring you to pay the fee?

either or, either build a sidewalk or pay the fee.

There's a pay or payment in lieu, and that sidewalk fee's been in place for over 20 years, ever since I've been on the council.

Well, we pay the $100 sidewalk fee every time. That's the only sidewalk fee that's in all my building permits.

So there's a little more to it than that?

So now it's gonna be like $30,000. Okay.

Well, he's got it on item seven, so we can probably move on and then deal with it on item seven.

Cool. Thank you. I'm just trying to go home early. No, I understand.

Thank you. Next on the list is David Dust.

David Dust for Easley Loop, Greenwood, Arkansas. I'm just going to expand on Mr. Dunn. said um after our last meeting with the uh the flock salesman um i went home and just ran some numbers around just ran them through an ai and so on and so forth uh it's an 8.4 billion dollar company right so i took greenwood's contract as just a template and applied it to all of the cameras across the united states accumulatively that is 1.7 billion dollars That is a $6.7 billion discrepancy. They're not selling cameras, guys. They're not. That's over $6.5 billion just out of nowhere. It's a red flag, guys, and a pretty big one. I understand... You claim that they're being used as automated license plate readers. That is absolutely a function that they have. It's not what they are. Do we still have 11? Okay. Does that include the ones at Walmart? Well, I understand. I understand. But, I mean, they're all meshed together. So, I mean, that's still part of the same grid. Okay, well, I mean, they're flocked. They look identical, yeah. So now there are more. Now they're tracking every time you go to Walmart. They're monitoring what you get, how you pay for it, everything. They're taking literally every scrap of information they can squeeze out of you. How... How do you all see this as still an option to make, like a choice to make? The body of these people don't want them. It's obvious. It's obvious from the last meeting. We don't want them. We were fine with license plate readers when that's all they did, but that's not all they do. They're controlled by AI. They use terabytes of metadata to literally track every, they know what your walking gait looks like. They do. They know how you walk, they know the lean that you do whenever you take a stride. They know that, they're selling that for six and a half billion dollars to whoever's gonna pay for it. And since we've decided to merge our military with Israel, Now there's no telling where our information's going. Y'all have turned us into the commodity. We're the product now, and y'all have made sure of that. Make the right decision, guys. Get rid of them. Thank you.

Next is Mr. Brian Pritchard.

Brian Pritchard, it's 180 Juniper Drive here in Greenwood. Mayor Kinslow, members of council, and Chief Hobbs, last month Greenwood held a special meeting to discuss FLOC. One question still hasn't been answered, how did we get here in the first place? The mayor pointed out that this isn't the same council from 2022. That's technically true, but five of the seven people here today were serving when FLOC was approved. Calling it a different council attempts to deflect responsibility from their role in that approval. At the August meeting, we were told that council approved a budget line for a block system, but didn't understand what that line was purchasing. But since that meeting, former Chief William Dawson has said, I persuaded the councilman and the mayor to allow me to do it. Ask AC Brown. How does someone persuade the five of you to approve something while you later say you didn't know what you were approving? I'm not accusing anyone of lying. I want to understand how those accounts fit together.

My next few questions aren't rhetorical.

I don't expect answers during my time, but I'd like to have them before the next speaker. And since Chief Dawson said ask AC Brown, Councilman Brown, what were you told? And what did you understand flock would do when it was approved in 2022? And to the five of you who are serving then, did those conversations with Chief Dawson actually happen the way he described? After the August meeting, I emailed Chief Hobbs, and I want to thank him publicly. Within three hours, he responded and explained changes he had previously made. I have tremendous respect for how he handled this. That's exactly the kind of leadership I've been asking for. Chief Hobbs reduced retention from 30 days to seven, restricted outside agency access, strengthened training and oversight, and says he has no need for additional cameras now or in the future. But here's one question Chief Hobbs can't answer for you. Where does this council stand? Chief Hobbs has given us his position, but this council hasn't. We've heard council members discuss the pros and cons of Flock. So what does each of you believe Greenwood should do? Do you support Flock under the safeguards now in place? Do you believe additional changes are needed? Or should Greenwood get rid of Flock altogether? At some point, I see both sides is in a position. And that matters. If we don't know where you stand, we don't know where to talk to about our concerns. I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm asking you to take a position and tell the citizens you represent what it is. And if the hesitation is an approaching election, nobody wants to make a political difficult decision, let's be honest about that. Local government can't stop governing until November. I want to be equally clear about where I stand. I'm not opposed to LPRs. Real-time scan and detect is valuable because police are looking for someone they have reason to find, a stolen vehicle, wanted suspect, Amber Alert, or a hot list. You're searching for the person of interest, not building a history on everyone else. I'm pleased Greenwood reduced retention from 30 days to seven. I'd prefer historical retention at zero. But if seven days remains, I believe accessing that history should require probable cause and a warrant or other judicial authorization. That would address three major concerns citizens have voiced outrage over. Fourth Amendment rights, privacy, and misuse, while still preserving the investigative value of the data. Chief Hobbs told me that would be a more significant restriction than current law requires and that he would want the city attorney involved. So Mr. Plummer, the question is, is there any legal reason Greenwood could not voluntarily require probable cause in a warrant or other judicial authorization before conducting a historical plot search? If there is, I'd like to understand it. If there isn't, that safeguard I believe Greenwood should seriously consider. That's where I stand. We had the debate in August. We've already had meaningful changes. In September, let's bring this issue to a close. clarify what happened in 22, tell the public where the council stands, and whatever requires the council's decision, vote on it publicly. Chief Hobbs has shown us what it looks like to take a position, explain it, and be accountable for it. I'm not asking every member on this council to agree with me. I'm asking you to do the same as Chief Hobbs. Thank you.

Thank you. Next on the list is Troop 54. Is there someone to speak on behalf of the troop?

I think they filed out. That's what I thought. They probably should have got in front of the flock guys. But I can kind of summarize real quick. So they were here because they're part of citizenship in the community mayor badge. It's something they all go through. And you have to attend a meeting like this and discuss things. And they were asked, do you have anything you want to put in a citizen's form, which there was quite a bit. A lot of the ones that were going to talk are gone to football. They had football tonight, but one of them was Cooper Redout. He wanted to complain about water bills. I don't think he's paying the water bills. Sounds like that's on behalf of somebody. I think he listens to the guy who's paying him to complain about the water bills. Then there was, to just summarize here real quick, most of it was parks related. They, Skateboard Park, it's always a popular one. They wanted park stuff for their age group. They say the little kids are taken care of and older, old people are taken care of. They wanted this little age group that they're in to be taken care of.

Define old people.

I think I'm old, so that's one of the definitions. So Skateboard Park, you see they'd had summer movies in the park. And the Ed Wilkson Pavilion when it's hot, free ice cream, free popcorn. And then we had something a little more serious, Cooper Winkler, who was here in the back. mom and grandma come to our council meeting years ago uh and we named the bridge after his his uncle his mom's brother he died in afghanistan and that's the bridge that got tore out so there was a question from him is my uncle's name still going to be there and i said Well, that's a good place to ask.

Absolutely. I just spoke to the mother this past week. That plaque, I believe, is in the street department. I'm not sure. We hope it is. That was a conversation I had with her. Yeah, that's going right back up.

But and Cooper was here. I wish he could have got in front of everybody else. But that's okay. So that's that's pretty much in summary. Most of it was parks related their complaints. So that's it.

Okay. And I know they're gone. But I do this. I try to do this as often as I can. And I don't do it often enough to 54 along with 189. Is that the other troop? 1989? I'm sorry. Have they? Okay. I was parts director, if you don't know, years ago for almost nine years or 10 years here in Greenwood, and they do a lot in this town. You cannot look very far in Greenwood and not see an Eagle Scout project, whether it be a pavilion in Bell Park. Many of those smaller pavilions in Bell Park were constructed by an Eagle Scout. one of them in the dead of winter I watched it happen they were knee-deep in snow and if they're putting up a pavilion other bridges all around town I can't even think of all the things sir trails for sure so my hats off to those those kids and those parents of those young men too that have done a lot in Greenwood I know they'll continue to do that so Appreciate them very much.

There is a comment, just so the city's aware. Thomas Veitch is starting on his Eagle Scout project, which is a bridge deep in the woods behind the lake. We're accessing it from Steve Brown's front yard.

Oh, okay.

Steve Brown said you can park there be as obnoxious as you want and put your stuff there and So going across through there and it's back crossing little vass crash Creek So and he's he's underway should be done in the fall I watched a few of those bridges being constructed at the lake.

That was amazing. I was taking Timber and poles and things from Mount Harmony or wherever all the way through the woods back in there to build those things so that Great work by the scouts. We appreciate them very much There is one scout project that's no longer there. And I think it was because of the guy that built it. Chief Brian built a bridge out the boards of girls. That's not still there, is it? It's still there. Good for you. Yeah. Okay. All right. Next on my list of the forum is Gwen Martin. There she is. It's up to the council. It's the forum that they can respond to or they do not have to.

I will say one thing.

Gwen, you might want to have a seat just a second. I'm sorry. I don't want you to have to stand there.

When Wade was talking about some of the alternatives, he brought up a point that I was thinking about. Each flock camera has RAM and storage capacity. it's roughly two, two megabyte or two gig of RAM and 29 gig of storage space. And with more processing power, and I don't know what that processing power is going to be, you can make those decisions on the fly. And you use a thin client network architecture, and just send a query off to the flock system. If it finds no match on an amber list or a hot list that is returned to the camera, the camera has capacity to delete it on the fly. That way no innocent person is ever sent to the plot cloud. Only the bad guys get sent to the plot cloud. Then you've got the issue of the, uh, the accuracy because there's question how many characters actually captured before they're confident and, and, and make that match. And the percentage that I understand was like 20 to 30% in that meeting the other day, and that's pretty significant. So those 20 to 30% represent potentially innocent people that get sent off. So you would have to have greater accuracy, processing capacity sufficient to make an on the fly decision whether to send that to cloud as a match or delete it at the camera level. And then you've got the issue of whether or not it's just a matter of we don't want cameras at all. So if I'm, I remember a conversation from Coach Jones, when I was in the lines club, and he, he said, when people asked me, if I have a choice between size and speed, he said, choose both and there's got to be some point along this where either we have the comfort level with the data being deleted at the camera or whatever along that continuum it's a contract and just like it was brought out that they have perpetual access to the data that's if they're talking about metadata the searches But if you're talking about the camera images itself in perpetuity worldwide, that's a whole different thing. So we've got to find out more. But again, is there a comfort point between the privacy and the safety that we can hit on? If not, we just don't buy that car. If we can't find the features we want, we move on and find one that does. I think from a technology standpoint, they can reach the point where no innocent person is sent off to flock. And that's what I would shoot for.

Thank you. Sorry. I'm happy to answer. Yeah, I was just let me make this statement real quick. Thank you, Councilman Tedford. Appreciate that. We'll let Mr. Plummer speak on three and four items on your agenda. We're going to kind of mesh here in a minute. We're going to put them together. It's going to be one item instead of two. But I'm assuming and again, council has the right to say or not say what they what they want to do. But some of those questions, I believe, will be answered for the folks in the crowd during that conversation. So, Mr. Plummer, did you have something?

Well, if it's all right with Mr. Pritchard, we can wait until we get down. I think we're going to cover a lot of the things that were mentioned tonight in agenda items three and four, and I'd be happy to answer your question for me at that time.

I'm not saying everybody's going to leave happy tonight by any means. I used to referee basketball, and that doesn't work. any game or anything else typically but I think I think some answers some questions will be answered for you tonight too that will help ever all of us okay mr. Martin sorry put you on hold so sorry

Good evening. I'm Gwen Martin, 1455 Meadow Bridge Drive. Mayor Kenslow, City Council, I'm here tonight to give you an update on the Greenwood Fine Arts Academy. As you know, we last year purchased land at 109 North Main Street. We have been busy trying to get our plans finalized and funding Gathered I suppose we're getting grants from lots of different people. We just got about $50,000 two grants came in about two weeks ago. So we are well on our way so Letting you know kind of where we are. We have our foundation plans that we're still waiting to get. And as soon as we get that, we will be sending it off to the state fire marshal per Hunter and Chief Ryan's recommendation. They have been extremely supportive in answering any questions that I have had or our general contractor, Jamie Brown. has had and so we are very thankful for their support. I was also happy to hear Buddy Lloyd giving his progress report on the Masonic Lodge because I know that's right across the street from us and that's a very special part of town being so close to the square. So it's very nice to see that things are being revitalized in that area. I also noticed that the quadplex is getting a little rehab. And so that's really nice. There's some new things coming to Denim and Pearls. There's a new business on Main Street where Lolo's used to be, the Greenwood Mercantile that will be opening in about two weeks. So all of that to say that once we are open and in business, we would like to see some support from the city, similar to what the city does for the Boys and Girls Club or the Senior Center. It's just supporting us in operating expenses. And we know that what we're bringing here is not just a building. It's not just a place for kids to perform and for you to go see a movie, which we will have movies. So Greenwood will finally have a movie theater. but it will also bring community to our community. And it will bring economic impacts that we should see across multiple businesses, both restaurants and shops. And so we are very excited and I just wanted to let y'all know kind of where we are and to just kind of keep you up to date on what we're doing. So thank you for your time this evening.

Okay, that's everybody that has signed up on the citizen forum for tonight. We'll move right into financial report. Mr. Marsh.

Given the length of the agenda, I removed 16 slides from my presentation for brevity purposes.

Here, here.

Start the timer. I got five minutes. Okay, here we go. Let me go through it like this. All right, the news from the city sales and use tax side is that for the same period percentage month over month, pretty much flat, less than a half percent down. There is a little bit of a reason for that, and I'll share that as we go on. The cumulative growth year for this 26 over 25 same period is up 4.5%, which is very good. It's one and a half percent above what our normal average growth is on city sales and use tax. County sales tax is really taken off. A lot of that has to do with what's going on in the cities within Sebastian County that we benefit from. And I'll share that with you in a second. Advertising and promotion looks really bad when you look at the same month, 26 over 25. Down 25%, well, I can tell you that September 1st, when that one day made a $3,000 difference in collections because there was one, two, three, four, five remitters that remitted late, by one day. It's actually not necessarily incorporated with a penalty because they had it mailed before the end of the period. It just didn't get to us until September 1st. So those numbers are not in the August, not reflected here. So this actual year-to-date cumulative growth, and I'll share that with you shortly, went from 5.4% to 7.5%. So it's rebounded because of the late one day late we're tracking it daily so we you're going to see a little bit of that as far as the city sales and use taxes was the four and a half percent that we are at but it's still more than what we had flipped from last year at this point we were at negative 3.9 so that's a fairly healthy move from our city sales and use tax perspective as far as the The shocking thing is that these were all the cities within the Sebastian County that reported their city sales and use tax. We are the only one that reflected negative. Everybody else had pretty healthy gains. Matter of fact, for the total county, they were up 5.29% in August 26 distribution over August 25. A little bit of a reason for this negative, and it had to do with the fact that August, by the way, is the month that we would expect a remitter from June in the rebate to file their rebate, and it would come back to us in this month. It did a little bit. It was up about 3,000 more than would be normal. but I will show you on the city sales and use tax side, there's two big events here that I wanna point out. This 2024 period, we banked this money right here in city sales and use tax, which was when those large purchases were made by the suppliers for the bypass. And then you'll notice the only hiccup down here in February was that negative $115,000 rebate that hit us. So you'll see they filed at the end of the year and it got taken, a large percentage of it got taken back. That's the only time that you see February in reverse. It's directly reflected by this. I will share, though, this lime green line is current year, and you see we're tracking just what we did in 2025 after the anomaly event, which started in 24. So that's what that little graph can at least give you some insight on what was going on. Here's the actual fiscal year rebate for June 30th remitters. Last year it was about 3,000, it's 7,500 this period. And you're gonna see a little bit of an uptick on that, primarily because they're purchasing more supplies for their bridge that they're building right now, and we're starting to see that pick up a little bit, but it's not gonna come anywhere close, at least what we see trend-wise, for the majority of the purchasing that's being done, unless they start buying steel, and then we'll see that at the first of next year. So we're considering that in our budgets. So as far as the rebate is concerned, we're still in the safety zone, which this would be your normal routine customary rebates that we always lived with. This was the anomaly. and it doesn't look like we're hitting that again. If you add back the rebates, we're actually up almost a percentage point for the year, $3.1 million in taxable sales increase, that's the actual sales that adds back the rebates, so we're up 2.21%. We do have the numbers. I have both inflations for because we had July, August remitted, reported rather inflation at 3.4 for July, but also September 11th, they came out with August's number for inflation. It stayed the same. If you'll do notice, the consumer price index is a little bit higher, which means this is probably inching up towards 3.5%, but the inflation graphs, as you see, the core is still 2.5%. and we were at 2.21, so still the same impact of they're buying less, but they're paying more, mostly in energy, as you know. County was robust, as it shows here. You're looking at, we were down almost 2%, we're up almost four. and that's actually very good for the operating departments that operate with that county sales tax under the general fund. Combined, we're up from last year at this point, combined we were down 3.05%, we're up 4.27. so far January through August. So the sales tax numbers are actually coming in very good. Here are the NAICS sector trends for the manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and food. And you'll do know the eight-month now trend. We were down in manufacturing for the eight-month percent change. We were down also, well, retail is pretty much flat. That's what I was kind of pointing out earlier. We were up in wholesale. Wholesale has a lot to do with what purchases of lumber and stuff that you see if you go right out the back during the daytime, you'll see them using a lot of forms to make their concrete formations for the bridge. that they're building out there, and a lot of that comes from the wholesale sector. As far as food, we're up 12.28% over the previous same eight-month totals. All in all, we're up 2.67 in just those four sectors, which is still very healthy. Breaking it down, the only thing I wanna show you on this one, because you do see we do track it, but we had a discussion about the Prime Day's impact, and they predicted that nationally it was an increase of about 9.8%. When you look at our numbers from this blue line right here, you're seeing that we were up 12 point, almost 13%, 12.94%. which is about 3.15% greater than what the national average was from the increase in the mail order or online sales, which is very good. They really embraced Prime Days within the city of Greenwood. And you do see that our trend, our NAIC's category trend is still, now it looks a little bit more favorable. As far as the advertising and promotion is concerned, you'll see that when it was originally reported, that 25% down, we only had 16. Normally last year we had 21,000, but I'm gonna show you just with what came in one day later. How it impacted, this would be the impact. It went up to almost 19.3, right under that range. And that brings us to cut it in half down to about 11.45% net of the penalty and rebates that they get, the discount. So you're looking at our cumulative being 7 1⁄2%, which is still very, very, very solid as far as the advertising and promotion monies are concerned from prepared food. Cash flow, we're up 7.38%, mostly due to the fact that the RDOT money came in for reimbursing for the utilities. This is all in city. We're budgeted to be down at the end of the year 60%, That ain't gonna happen. A lot of it has to do with some of the capital projects that were embedded in there that are slow to materialize and slow to encumber the city with the amount of money that we're having to actually cash flow out. I'm gonna be interested to just let you know that every department has their budget worksheets right now and they're working on it. We did talk about it today. We're expecting those to start coming in by mid-October and we can start at our next meeting, we can start talking about setting some dates for budget reviews for 2027. As far as the capital expense is concerned, this is one of the reasons why I was saying I don't think our cash flow is gonna hit negative 60. Most of that was derived from water sewer. Water sewer right now is at 32.92% spend on their capital. The year to date, the city's 34%. The non-water sewer departments are at 42.41% of what they had budgeted for capital. That's one of the big reasons why I don't see in the next three months us hitting 60% down on our cash. I will talk about the contingency funds. I will show you that this was something that we're gonna be talking about in one of the items there on the S&P call. But you will see that our contingency fund balance right now is 39% higher. well above the 25% mark that we have as the ceiling. So you know the number between the 746 and the 932 is not touchable. It's left there for kind of an immediate contingency. Trigger points would happen at a 10, 25, 50, and 75% reduction in our actual unrestricted general fund. We are now $102,000 ahead of the $932,000 ceiling. If we were ending the year right now, we would be putting $102,000 in a restricted contingency fund for future use by the council. That money would be tucked away as your contingency build and rainy day fund. So that's very healthy. I mean, it's been 38, 35, 40, 39%. So this was a very good process that you've approved and established by ordinance, and it's gonna be paying off in the long run to secure funding for future needs. And there you have it.

Thank you, sir. Good news. Point three minutes. You did good. Thank you. That's a record. Appreciate the information. It's always detailed. Thank you very much. I've been notified that we need to make a correction or something with Mr. Yes, sir. Mr. Stevens, you got to. Yes, sir.

336 I'm sorry So it's not rejected but so you're good with it being electronic I

Thank you appreciate that thank you for checking it twice thank you Okay Thank You mr. Marsh agenda additions we have one this morning during our actually this afternoon we had an afternoon meetings our department heads so we need to add a number 12 from the fire department on-call shift work discussion. Authorization. At this time, would the council have any agenda additions you wish to add? If not, we will move on. Yes, with your permission, I mentioned it earlier, with the council's permission, I'd like to merge item number three and four under new business just to become one. It's all the same topic, we just.

Marry them.

We wanna marry them, that's correct. Council okay with that?

Good.

Okay. Old unfinished business number one is planning, discussion of proposed project located at East Highway 10 commercial storage facility. Oh, microphone's missing. Mr. Bell, I'm sorry.

We discussed this last month, had a variance request on it. After the meeting, the property owner called Councilman Meeker and asked him some questions on this. And Ralph came to me and says, can we put this back on the agenda for discussion only and invite the developers down? to answer any questions and go over this project with you. So with that, I would like to invite them up to the podium. They can introduce themselves and go from there.

Thanks, Sonny. Mark Watson, Searcy, Arkansas. 200 West Mulberry, Searcy, Arkansas. I really appreciate you guys having us back in front of you this week. As Sonny alluded to, the meeting that we weren't here for before did not go as planned, and I was able to rewatch that video, and I want to apologize for the representation that we put before y'all in that meeting. Don't think it was indicative of who we are as a group, and really appreciate the opportunity to come back and visit about this particular topic. Again, my name is Mark Watson from Searcy, Arkansas. In 2007, I put out a shingle and started in the entrepreneurship world. Primarily, my focus has been commercial real estate over the last 20 years, and that's taken a lot of different looks over the years. Everything is based on our mission, which is to add value in everything that we do. And that stems through all of our commercial projects, also the businesses that we run and operate over the years, as well as just relationships that you meet up and down the street. At the end of the day, service is core to who we are as a company, and it takes a lot of different forms. In the commercial real estate world, we've done a lot of different developments. We've done everything from retail strip centers is kind of where we got our start, kind of your typical Walmart shadow centers. And since then, we've done hospitality projects, we've done medical projects, we've done office projects, and just about every form of real estate you can do. Also, along the way, we started acquiring and building businesses, different operating businesses, mostly located here in Arkansas and surrounding states. And today, really, we've sold off most of our operating businesses, and I focus primarily on the real estate portfolio that we've slowly been growing in the background for the last 20 years. And then looking for opportunities to reinvest that, uh, with, with our real estate and also with our businesses over the years, our niche has always been, uh, to find underserved markets and bring different product types to those markets, uh, that are needed. And so, um, whether that's with a business or with real estate, we've always been market driven in the way that we approach our new opportunities. Uh, one of those projects is one that you guys will be very familiar with. Uh, open my 19th anytime fitness location here in Greenwood, Arkansas. Uh, we had a market driven approach then, and we would study a market that was underserved when it came to fitness and a green one was one that popped up on our radar. And the more we came here and started to look, we really felt like we could serve a need. And so like many of our projects, we have kind of the initial tip of the spear, which is the reason we come. but then other things come alongside it. And so while Anytime Fitness was our purpose to come to Greenwood, we developed a relationship with AT&T and had one for several years and were able to recruit them to come to Greenwood with us. And along the way, we started talking with Dollar Tree. And so the Dollar Tree, Anytime Fitness, and AT&T buildings are ones that we built. Shawn Lin, many of you probably know Shawn Lin. We had a great time with Shawn Lin. Craziest story really, mostly of my career, was to buy a piece of dirt from an individual, build our development and locate our business there, and then a few months later sell it back to him. He said he missed the sunrises and sunsets there, so he said, you know, Sean, if you buy it now, you can see them from on top of the building. It's even better. And oddly enough, he did buy it back. Also, sadly, his restaurants closed on Monday, so when we came to town, we weren't able to eat there. But that experience in Greenwood, working with the planning commission then, going through the entire development construction process, we always oversee all the construction on our own projects. General contracting is an area that we've had background with as well. And so when we do new developments now, nine times out of 10, we're GCing the projects internally. In some locations, we'll have a GC who helps project manage our projects, but we like to kind of control them from beginning to end to keep them on costume. on pace with being completed in a timely manner. But Greenwood was a really good experience for us. The Anytime Fitness we opened here performed really well up until the point we sold that business along with the entire Anytime portfolio that we had grown. And so it was Greenwood was on a short list for us when we started looking for our next projects we were looking to do. And we came and spent two or three visits here, drove back through town, which led us to the property Uh, that's the subject property for today. It was a property we were already familiar with. We'd looked at it years ago, uh, as a potential location for the anytime fitness, uh, really that whole corridor down through there, the attractive thing for us was the proximity to the bed base of Greenwood, uh, in, in finding a use that would serve that bed base. And so, um, that's what led us to that property initially. Again, many times we look for different purposes or what's the highest and best use of this property. And as we begin to go through some of the data on Greenwood, we felt like Greenwood was underserved from a storage perspective. We look at certain metrics in storage to look at whether it's being served or underserved. One of those is the metric of square feet per capita. And so we'll study a market to see how many square feet per capita there are. We found over the years that the national averages and the rules of thumb don't really apply to rural Arkansas. A lot of times people will drive a little further in Arkansas than they do in large metropolitan areas. Typically, storage is gonna serve one to three miles around it. We found in rural settings in the communities that we operate in now that that radius is a little bit bigger. But nonetheless, there's a shortfall of storage in Greenwood for this area, this community and the areas that surround Greenwood. Not so much for the drive up storage. The drive up storage is, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it's oversupplied by any means, especially with the type of product that we bring. Uh, but the climate control storage is the area that's in real shortage here. Um, our hope too, was that whenever we come to do a project, we look for opportunities to do additional projects and sometimes they come to fruition and sometimes they don't. So just like when we came with Anytime Fitness and that grew into AT&T and Anytime Fitness, and then that grew into Dollar Tree. Um, we look at this parcel as being something that could continue to develop down that corridor. Um, and that's something that we've had discussions with the seller about is that initially we're looking for the acreage that would fit the immediate use, but we see a path for future projects that could continue, uh, down the street. I think, I think Sean Lynn owns some street further or own some land further down the street that he also would like to see, uh, progress made on. But, um, that was a lot of our discussion and bear our engineers here to visit a little bit about the site plan specific. Uh, but that was a lot of, I know his discussion with the planning commission was about other future projects that could exist around us there. Um, a couple other things that I wanted to address, uh, quickly is, uh, some things when I rewatch the video, one of the topics of discussion with sales tax generation, a topic that I definitely understand of own businesses that remit sales tax and others that don't. And it is true that storage does not remit sales tax, other than ancillary sales for boxes and things of that nature, but nothing that's very material. And there was a law on the books in Arkansas at one time, well before I was in storage, where storage was a remitter of sales tax. That law changed, and it changed to keep storage in keeping with other traditional real estate types. So similarly, if I were to have a house and you wanted to rent it and it was $1,000 a month, Sales tax is 10%. You wouldn't pay me, the landlord, a 10% sales tax on that house rental. Storage being real estate is the same way in that way. So the law change brought it in keeping with the other forms of real estate that we have in Arkansas. So it would be treated the same way. Just like commercial buildings, retail buildings that we own, our tenants don't remit or don't pay us sales tax to remit to the state as the landlord. And so storage is similar in that way. An area that we do generate sales tax, and it was mentioned in the video, is on the onset, it's a multi-million dollar project, and so there's a tremendous amount of steel and doors and other materials that we do buy that do create a one-time sales tax. It doesn't continue in perpetuity, but it certainly has a pretty big lick on the onset. The other thing with storage is about 15 to 25% of our facilities are filled with commercial tenants. Um, just like a strip center, you know, you see different tenants that fill their storage is different, but essentially we have a number of different tenants that fill there. Some of those are homeowners, others are renters, but there's a number of businesses that we serve and those services are those businesses. There's many of those that are sales tax generating. We have a number of on top online retailers who prod whose products are sold out of there. Um, the lawn care companies, the plumbing companies, the electrical companies, Uh, there's just a number of restaurants. There's a number of groups or businesses in the community that store at our facilities, uh, particularly with the climate control aspect. And so, uh, while we don't remit sales tax, uh, we certainly support a number of businesses that do. Uh, we also contribute a meaningful amount to property tax, uh, taking a wooded lot and turning it into a multimillion dollar facility. certainly gets reassessed and does contribute a meaningful amount of property taxes. The compatibility with the neighborhoods nationally and where all of our facilities are located are typically in near proximity to neighborhoods. While we do serve a lot of businesses, at the end of the day, the households and the bed bases are really where most of the business and most of the service is provided. And so near proximity to neighborhoods is very typical with a storage facility. We feel like in our experience that we're about as good of a commercial use neighbor as a neighborhood can get. We have super low traffic. We're not noise generating. We're not air polluting. We have super low eave heights so you don't see much. You might have a neighbor next door whose roof height is much higher than a storage facility. We're typically eight and a half to nine feet at eave height. Many times you wouldn't even see us over a privacy fence. The other thing we have is a lot of security with wooded lots. Who knows who's there? With our facility, it will be a fully fenced facility. We do have cameras, and I do not think they're flock. I just want to make that clear. But we do have cameras on site, and that's a secure premise. And so, largely, we are a very good neighbor to... to a neighborhood-type setting and also provide a service that's convenient for the folks that live in those neighborhoods. I also noted that in our rezone process, we send out the mailers, right, and get the feedback from those that are within proximity. And in our experience, there's always a turnout. And this was the first project that I can remember in quite some time that there was no one that came out in opposition to the rezone. Speaking to the zoning classification, there was comments about the industrial zoning classification. And that's not a zoning that we would typically apply under. In a lot of the communities that we apply under, it would be a commercial zoning or a commercial zoning with a special use. The commercial zoning with a special use still gives the council kind of the one-off discretion. as opposed to it just being set into a commercial zoning, that if it's zoned that way, you can use that use. It keeps it a special use oftentimes. A lot of times the industrial settings we've seen have been largely protected areas and areas that are typically a lot higher impact or higher value in job creation type settings. And so it wasn't our intent to do industrial typically, but under the current Greenwood zoning code, that's where it fell. And so that's why we submitted our application that way. At the end of the day, we are here to serve. We believe that Greenwood is underserved in this specific product type. It's our desire to do a project here. We've had good success in Greenwood and would like to continue to invest in Greenwood. We typically get involved in our communities with supporting local groups, different sports teams and things of that nature. Being a part of the community is important to us and so we're here to serve in that way. And at the end of the day, if we can't create a win-win, that's okay. And it makes sense for us to not be involved in any transaction in life or in business that doesn't really create a true win-win. I would like to turn it over briefly to Bear Davidson. He's our engineer on the project, and he can speak a little bit to the planning that we've done and the changes that we made to try to make it a more appealing layout for the Planning Commission.

Thanks Mark. And thanks mayor for letting us be here tonight. I'll, I'll be brief, but I wanted to speak a little bit about our process going through planning. Uh, we attended two planning commission meetings and then had other numerous conversations during that time with Sonny and Hunter who were extremely helpful. I'll add, uh, there was the process that was involved to get to the layout. We're at now that top document is a, internal drawing really where we were working through how we could fit our initial development of storage on this parcel but also create parcels along the frontage that are more traditional commercial type developments. We wanted to see and wanted to create parcels that would be attractive to a light retail or a quick service type restaurant. along the highway frontage, more of the traditional sales tax producing type commercial developments. The parcel shape for the storage may seem odd if you look at it by itself, but when paired with what else could fit on there, I think it makes sense about what we were trying to achieve. Initially, we were taking up more of the frontage along the main road. for storage but we got negative feedback from the planning commission about that at the initial meeting and so we asked them the table we went back to the office and adjusted when we came back for the second meeting they approved our request to send it all to you and sorry They thanked us, though, for paying attention to their feedback, which was good feedback from them, I thought, when we came back the second time. They said, hey, thanks for paying attention to what we asked, and we feel like what you presented is what we asked for. So we were excited at that point, and we were optimistic about getting an approval. But obviously we weren't able to get an approval from the council for the rezone. And so as Mark stated, the industrial zoning was a little bit different than what we had been working towards in other communities for similar type developments. And I think that was maybe a little bit of a sticking point because of the fact that we would be asking for industrial zone surrounded by residential zones. And so the ask tonight is for if you look at the documents in front of you and take into consideration what Mark stated about the project as a whole and the potential for future development in the area, if you consider that to be a good thing, we would ask that you would take this back up and consider allowing storage to be a conditional use in commercial. That still gives council control on a case-by-case basis, but it doesn't require us to pursue a zoning that maybe doesn't fit for that spot. I think it could be a good thing for Greenwood and I think the main thing I would like to touch on to close is that it's unusual. We work for a lot of commercial developers and chains, national chains, those folks are looking for three quarter to two acre tracks that are ready to be built on. It's unlikely that they would buy this 12 or 15 acres and split it up. But what Mark and his team would like to do and what they've done successfully all over the state is to produce a site that's ready for development for commercial users. Allowing the storage facility to be constructed and take up the rear portion of that allows them to set up that frontage to be more developable for a commercial user. So we just ask that you consider that in a way, if you think this is a good thing, helping us find a path to move forward in that manner. I'll try to answer questions if you have any, but that's all.

Thank you, council. You have questions or comments?

Well, my big thing is the industrial in that location. The land use plan looks for the highest and best use of the land, which is sales tax generation. And the majority of the lot doesn't do that. But it's really the I-9, if that doesn't come to fruition or if something happens in the property. So it's still i nine and an i nine is not compatible with the residential. So it's it's mini storage today. But you know, there's a long time left in the world. And once you rezone it, you're destined to be your zone from now, I would encourage the city to figure out what they want to do with I don't I don't want to rezone this to industrial. That's my position. I don't think that's appropriate as a long term zone next to a large subdivision. So if I mean is a development, I don't have any issues with it's got a good amount of commercial in it. The storage I'm okay with as a use, but I just don't want the, I don't want to rezone this to industrial.

I don't think we disagree with you at all. I don't, industrial is not really our pursuit. Our pursuit is to be able to develop the property and the storage can be a catalyst for that development for our team. And so I think it's worth considering if that's agreeable to you all, that the zoning code be updated to reflect it because the current zoning code only allows storage and industrial zones.

Hunter and I were visiting about this this morning. And we've got this. We've got conditional uses for commercial. And when you get into the actual zoning of the commercial, it highlights that many storages would be relegated to industrial but then in the conditional uses for commercial it allows storage facility many storage facility residential storage facility so there's a conflict in the ordinance and and we kind of need to look at that and figure out which direction they want to go but If the council feels like you've made enough of a move in terms of commercial versus mini storage, I'm comfortable with it. I just don't want to rezone this to industrial.

I think we'd be okay with that. We don't expect to leave here tonight with our project being approved. We are hopeful to find a path for us to keep working towards an approval with Sony and Hunter.

What is the likelihood of you being the developer? Maybe I missed a little piece there of this frontage here. You don't need another Dollar General. We've got one right there. Is that coming from you guys? Does that make sense? It does. Uh, we're definitely a boutique. Yeah, I agree.

We were talking about that on the way here and I told him that's the only place my family eats out. It's Chick-fil-A. So, um, if you came and looked at my office, it would look like a commercial real estate office. Uh, however, we're boutique and that we only work on our own projects. And so we don't have a number of other projects going. We tend to get laser focused. Uh, the plan here was those two outlets actually would stay with the seller, but they would be, um, the plan was to, to grub the lots, to, to have them set up so that they're out lots out pads ready for. So, and as bear was saying, a number of the different national and regional groups that we work with that are out there, when they come to site, they need to see something that's not, it may not be pad ready, but it's real close to pad ready. And that creates an attractiveness immediately for the project. For us, I talked about being a value-add group. When I see woods, it doesn't bother me at all. Because I know there's a process to remove the woods and put a project in place. And so to me, that's part of adding value. But there's a... It would be my druthers that we would find a Chick-fil-A that would ask me to develop that for them 100%.

Well, on that note...

what's this what's the space there what does that allow i mean let's just let's have fun if it wasn't chick-fil-a i think in your drawings there there's conceptuals that bear's office put together to show the uses that can fit those lots as designed specifically for them each of those

parcels at the frontage mayor is about one acre and so that was intentional a qsr which is what everyone calls fast food now quick service restaurant they are usually looking for 0.8 to 1.5 acres so this gives flexibility in that two smaller developments could go in there or one User could buy both acres. But on the sketch that's in front of you, and again, that was just internal for us to make sure we were spacing the site well. We showed in the western one acre, we showed like a strip type retail center. And in the eastern, we showed a footprint from a QSR that we work with just to see what we didn't put a name on it because it's conceptual, but just to see what would fit there.

Does that answer your question? It does. I know the fire chief well enough to know. He's looking at it going, well, can we do what he requires for a fire truck and all that sort of stuff, which we can't get into the nitty-gritty of that tonight. And I do know the seller or the owner here, and I know they're motivated to do more with this property for sure.

okay yep thank you i got two quick questions yes sir one is is the green space between the residential and the proposed storage buildings is that something that you guys would clear and then replant or could we maintain no the intent would be to leave that 50 foot that's actually um there's drainage that goes through there as well that would be my next question so it creates maintaining drainage easement yes we we're not able to

vacated if we wanted to there's a drainage he's been through there um so but our intent would be to leave that as a natural vegetative buffer and i don't have data to back this up but i believe that's probably why we didn't have much opposition at planting because we were leaving a 50 foot strip of woods between the residents who would sometimes show up at a project like this and speak against it.

That's not a bead ditch in there. I'm sorry to interrupt you. That's not a bead ditch back there, is it, Jeff, anywhere? I know it is over by the, up closer to the triplexes.

There's one further east to Werner Road. Yeah, yeah. This is the one I'm thinking about. It could be on the other side.

I mean, I wouldn't think there was. I know that's heavily wooded. Sir. Okay. But but it does contain a 5050 how wide the easement 100 you know right off. Okay.

Yes, sir.

Mr. to select the other corner right there. Yep. Yep. I got a bigger

Okay. Well, I knew they did quite a bit of direct drainage right behind the store. Is that what you're saying when they first put that in?

Right. You answered my question.

Do you have another question, Council Member Meeker?

You said you had two. Did you have, Mr. Tedford?

I was just passing by. I keep saying I-9. There's no such thing as I-9.

I thought you were talking about interstate somewhere. It must have, too.

It is an IRS document.

It is, right. Yeah, maybe that's it. I understood what you were speaking about.

Yeah.

So I guess his question would be, you know, what is his path moving forward? I mean, is this something that could go back to the Planning Commission and they either put restrictions on the current zone classification or do they go back to C2?

Hunter or Sonny, do you want to expound on that a little bit?

Before he gets going, we changed the ordinance to industrial for storage because the climate control went out there and it blew up a whole lot of prime real estate on Center Street. We weren't going to let that happen to us again, correct? That's why we made the change. For people that are wondering why it's an industrial now, we've got mini-storages all over town, but the last climate control that got put in wasted a whole lot of western sizzling and tax revenue base. That's why there was so much opposition and why the change was made.

On Center Street and Highway 10, go out there.

The thing that makes this different is the addition of the commercial to it and the relegation of mini-storages back. So the The land use map clearly shows places that are gonna be for commercial sales tax generation. And that's just the one use that doesn't generate sales tax. So you don't want it to be the turnoff off your main street if it's not gonna generate sales tax. But they're relegating that to the back and moving some commercial forward and that helps. So somehow our language needs to

Include a little bit more about where we exactly want the mini storages to be As you know we have strip Centers that have both tax generating businesses in them and non tax generating businesses and this is kind of what we're being proposed here, but the non-tax generating business would be behind the forward. Now, nothing guarantees that what goes into that front could be an insurance company, could be an optometrist or something like that that would be filling that spot but not being a a tax-generating business, but that's the chance that you take when you do your commercial strip centers. I think the path forward to this, with the council's permission, is to take it back to the Planning Commission and look at it as a conditional use in C2.

And you would have to strike the reference to industrial out of him. And I would say that's fine, but I think there needs to be more language in saying that the primary use of the frontage on those should be for sales tax generation.

But how can we control that? I mean, once it's built and it's available for rent, and somebody comes, like I said, like an optometrist by your neighborhood, can the owners of the property or can the city say, no, you can't put an optometrist in there?

Can they put a pornography store in there? A what? Pornography store?

No. Why? Not in Greenwood. Why? Because they're limited to... Then you can control them from putting an eye doctor there. They are limited to industrial only.

And then you can control them from putting an eye doctor or whatever there. What's the difference? If somebody builds a building, they've got to come to planning before they build it, right? What are you going to put there? Oh, some office spaces for tax people and lawyers? No offense.

No.

No, we're denying that. We're looking for tax-generated.

What they would do is be coming to the Planning Commission and say, we want to open up an area for retail operation. But again, you look at, like I said, the property up there at Webster and 10, you've got a mix there. And I don't know that the city can control that, but you talk about... Pornography, we have an ordinance that says it has to be in an industrial area. That was done years ago.

Yes, I thought we had something so you can't have that at all on that.

No, it's just like the climate controlled stuff out there. I asked the same question. We said we didn't want those built out there. Well, you can't tell a guy we can do this land unless he wants to put a strip bar on there. Then we can. So I didn't know. I didn't figure out where the difference was.

Well, when the storage facilities out on 10th Spur was built, it was in commercial, C2 commercial, and it listed that that was one of the things you could put in there.

Well, luckily it didn't come to us or we would have disallowed that probably too, but y'all passed it and we never saw it.

No, the council gave the planning commission the ability to make that decision. Yeah, I know.

That was a mistake. But anyway. Yes, sir.

Sure, Senator.

Just because we work in a lot of different municipalities, and storage is often a topic of conversation. And I think when I'm listening to Mr. Terry speak and I'm hearing what he says, I think maybe... what you're leery of is storage being allowed by right in commercial without any, just it's commercial so storage is allowed. And so I think fail safe here is to correct the language about the industrial but still to only allow it with conditional use which gives you all oversight on a case by case basis and if somebody comes in here wanting a conditional use permit on a parcel that takes up a ton of highway frontage, y'all can say no, that's not what our intent is for frontage. It gives you the flexibility and the ultimate authority on a project by project basis as opposed to just by right you can build storage and commercial. So just something to consider that other communities have done to keep that ultimate decision making authority on storage but not just allow it in any circumstance on a commercial property. So just something to explain.

You called that what? Conditional use.

So like in your in your table of uses Sonny like it would mean storage is allowed in commercial but only by conditional use permit.

I really don't have any problem with the storage. I've talked to the landowners and she discussed what Mr. Watson was talking about, about how it being kind of behind, and I like that. I'm sure there'll be some decent commercial stuff up front, but I didn't even think about an optometrist and a whatever until Sonny just said that, and then we always go back to this argument we have about telling people what they can and can't do with their property. We certainly can, for my examples.

Just get some legislation passed to charge sales tax, don't you?

Well... Not all of those uses are going to be self-taxed.

Well, unfortunately, I'm in the business of making money for the community.

At the end of the day, the self-tax is going to be paid by all the voters who live here.

We don't want to tax the voters.

Whether it's hospitals or doctors or behavioral health or all these different uses, CPAs, financial institutions, the banks that service, the schools that are here, all of these are cornerstones to any community, and none of them...

The other thing is jobs also. The storage unit brings no jobs. There's no water bill that's getting paid monthly, per se.

It'll be temporary jobs in construction, and it'll also house businesses that do generous jobs.

When you talk about Anytime Fitness, we don't generate much tax revenue off that, but they do have a water bill that we pay. We'll have that, but we'll have nice irrigated.

Well, something like, when you're talking about Anytime Fitness and the AT&T, how does that footprint look to these, this QSR and this retail? I mean, what size footprint do they have?

Another thing that I deal with a lot of commercial tenants on is the depth of the property. And we talked about moving the storage bag. Really the only reason why we had to fund it to do is we've got to have an access point in the entryway. Normally as a developer, it's like, And so at the end of the day, if people know we're there, then they're going to come to us, even if we're set back, right? But there are a number of uses. Like with my anytime fitness, I would have been having to buy a commercial lot that is significantly deeper than . And so in some ways, it makes it easier for someone to use this. If somebody needs more acres, where there's 15 more acres or more, .

I know nobody in the room drinks coffee, but that'd be a nice little spot for a seven brew. What is it Daniel?

I do know we have four coffee shops in Greenville.

We've got 500 storages. Yes.

That's why we try to learn from our mistakes. We don't do a very good job of it, but we try. And that's where the ordinance came to put this in industrial, but

Were you involved in that Dollar Tree being out there too?

Okay. Because it has not got any love, or you've talked about it, and that's the only place I go in that little mall. I love the Dollar Tree.

That's another thing about us. We're not just building to leave. It's very, it's unknowable. It's not normally nice to develop and leave. We typically own for the long term. And so we're looking for a community that's going to be a part of the community, let alone three hours away. We're bringing those here.

Well, the building department's working for you guys, so you tell us what you would like for us to do to proceed forward.

I don't have any problem with figuring out what the language needs to be on the C2.

Yeah, conditional use.

I mean, that makes sense.

I mean, you sold me on the commercial frontage. Just pray unto the Lord that some commercial shows up there. I'm not...

whatever else Tim the conditional use will come back to the council yeah so you can look at you know what what conditions the Planning Commission puts on it if if it's agreeable with you or if you want to add to it take some away whatever you want to do and that'll be at the council's discretion I would load if he would just lied to us that he's got some bites on those properties

Y'all also could have bought my lunch at El Palenque a while ago.

I saw you in there.

That's illegal.

Don't worry about it. Do they need to come to the Planning Commission?

We will start working forward to that. When we come up to that, then they will come to the Planning Commission. We'll start basically at step one with this and set up some conditional uses presented to the Planning Commission and you know they will add to it or whatever and then it'll come back to the Council.

I realize you're getting bounced around a little bit and I don't necessarily want to apologize for that because I think that's just the way things have to be but thank you for being here and thank you for doing a really much better job than the last time.

On the conditional use, I would still like to say, I know that, you know, Ralph mentioned the woods behind there, you know, in between the residential and there, you know, I like how you have the all around it, you know, even on the commercial side, you know, I'd like for you to retain.

Again, when we started the process, I sent out letters to everybody that is behind there. including the Dollar Tree and all that. I got zero returns as far as, you know.

Sorry, say, what's the distance on that again? I know, but I can't remember. How far do you send those?

Everybody that touches the property.

Just touches the property? Yes. What'd you say? 50 mile radius. Okay.

Everybody that touches the property.

Okay, that's what I thought. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate you very much. Okay, we are at number two under new business Councilman Tedford. Non-sales tax generating commercial uses.

Okay, I had that feeling.

So three and four is going to be combined, married, however you want to look at it. I think Chief Hobbs would like to speak first on behalf of this this discussion. Do we need to take a break? for anybody five minute break you good to go keep going let's keep going terry's getting tired you're getting sleepy okay i saw terry or rusty dozing off back there okay mayor council madam clerk mr attorney so starting off where we left off from uh august study session till now

Really, the question is, is what platform gives Greenwood the best combination of public safety capability, accountability, and privacy protection? I want to back up and say I appreciate what the comments earlier. I appreciate you, Mr. Pritchard. Very kind words. I appreciate your back and forth and your feedback and looking for solutions. So as y'all know, I've taken a deep dive in this, stemmed out of a meeting with Mr. Dunn and the city attorney and the mayor. Since that meeting and since September's study session, or August study session, I immediately changed the policies, adopted new policies, changed the retention initially to 30 days, and then we dropped it down to the seven days as it is now. We stopped all sharing capabilities. We provided the in-person training to my department, and we provided continual education that's CLES certified online training. I've evaluated FLOC, Axon, Motorola, and the feasibility of developing an internal city operating system. reviewed our current and proposed cost and consulted with the city's IT, DCR, Ms. Denise, she's been great. I've spoken directly with the police chiefs of Fort Smith, Alma, spoken to Greenwood School District about our partnership. I've evaluated our existing relationship with Axon and Through that, I believe that Greenwood should continue using LPRs. I'll say that right off the bat. I think we should continue using them. However, I think we should strongly look at going to Axon in lieu of Flock. And I'll get into my reasons why. And I'll also get into my reasons why I don't think it's a good idea to do it internally. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, WE STILL OPERATE TEN LPR'S AND ONE PTZ PANDA ZOOM CAMERA THAT'S LOCATED AT DENVER AND CENTER. THE INITIAL PURCHASE WAS FOR FIVE. WE'VE GOT SIX AND THE SCHOOL PAYS FOR FIVE CAMERAS IN A PARTNERSHIP. To answer Mr. Dunn's question, who has access from the schools, I have three SROs, certified full-time law enforcement officers assigned to the schools, and I have two reserve officers, retired FBI, Jimmy Cottle, and Andy pool, which used to work for us as a reserve officer through my department and he works there, they have access to it. So my three law enforcement officers and two reserve officers that are fully certified with the state of Arkansas. Does that answer that? OK. So my reasons about axon or or. Yeah, axon. So I. Well, one, let me back up. I gave you the Motorola quote last month during that study. And it's just extremely expensive. It puts it back on us to do all the work. We got to do all the permitting. We have to implement the poles. We have to do all the maintenance. With that, I don't think that's an option. So I started looking at what Mr. Tefford asked me to do was look at what we can do internally and also looked at Axon. Because ultimately, out of that meeting, I was asked to let's go see if flock is the best or if there's another camera that's better. I feel like I've been committed to doing that and I feel like that I might have done that. So let me get on. So moving the axon would actually be a cost savings for both myself and the school district, the Axon cameras would be roughly $28,000 a year versus 30, so you're not saving a lot. So you say, okay, well they're cheaper, they're less expensive. Well the reason why is they've given us a bundle price, because we already are customers of Axon. We operate their Axon body cameras. So they gave us a bundle price. So integration with Axon, I think it's smart for us to go that direction. We're already an Axon customer. Our officers use Axon body worn cameras and we use Axon evidence Evidence.com to store and manage some of the most sensitive digital evidence maintained by our departments. We go into people's house. We might fight a naked person. We might see a family when they're fighting or they've had worse days. We've got fatalities on them from car wrecks. It's our most sensitive evidence, and we trust Evidence.com to store it. Thank you. So moving LPR capabilities into the same environment would consolidate another major investigative system into a platform for our officers. We're not evaluating access as an unknown company. They've been around. They've been in the law enforcement business for a long time. One of the main reasons I looked at Axon is because the auditing and accountability and the retention. The accountability has been one of the most important considerations during this review. We want the supervisor to be able to determine, readily determine, who accessed the system, what was searched, when it was searched, why the search was conducted, and what information was viewed and shared. Whether the use complied with our department policy and Arkansas state law. Based on our view, Axon's administrative and auditing environments appears more user friendly for our purposes. That matters to us. The LPR technology that allows searches should also be easy for us to do the auditing of that, and Axon appears to be easier to do the audit. Greenwood, I told y'all Greenwood, we currently are a seven-day retention period. I plan on staying at that retention period. One of the things about Motorola that they keep information for 10 years regardless. That's their policy. They keep it for 10 years. 10 years, they get rid of it. That's even worse than flocks, if you look. So moving on to cybersecurity. What I liked about Axon, cyber security is one of the strongest reasons to look at Axon. No company can guarantee they will never experience a cyber attack. Axon can't guarantee that, Flock can't guarantee that, the city of Greenwood can't guarantee that. The better question is what safeguards are in place to reduce the risk and limit the consequences of a breach? So what I liked about Axon, Axon uses Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Service. It's encrypted at both ends, in its resting position and in its transit position. So the information would be stored in two locations, encrypted. If you was to break into one, you would have to break into the other and combine the two to get the information.

I liked that.

It made sense to me. Another thing that stuck out about Amazon was something I hadn't even heard, FedRAMP. Never heard it. Through talking to Axon and Motorola, that never came up. It was always about CGIS and CGIS security agreements. FedRAMP, I learned, which caught my attention, is a federal risk and authorization management program for the highest authorization of cloud storage. Ms. Denise has later told me that Flock has the same FedRAMP, but they never did mention that one time to me. I just learned that through Axon. That's probably something they should have told me before. far exceeds the FBI CEGIS compliance that we currently have. It doesn't mean that Axon can't be breached. It just means that they've undergone substantial outside evaluation against federal security requirements, rather than simply just asking us to believe that they were a safe company. So we already trust axon with some of our most sensitive video information. And during this search, I've not been able to identify a publicly documented compromise of axon evidence, evidence.com body cams that resulted in stored police, uh, camera footage being stolen or publicly exposed to me. That says a lot that says something we've been wearing these body cams for a long time. And, uh, Not just us, 770,000 cops out there wearing body cams, and most of them are Axon, and you've never heard of a breach. You've never heard of somebody getting that information. That meant something to me. So, Axon has a substantial history of managing highly sensitive law enforcement digital evidence, and they've proven it. Privacy concerns surrounding LPR technology are legitimate and should not be dismissed, and I don't think we have. I think we're addressing them right now. Our goal should be use this technology while placing reasonable restrictions around it like we have done. I've asked the city attorney to review the axon terms. He's going to address that. So I'm going to skip that portion of it. I provided it to him. I will say this, that he has not had it for very long. So I don't expect him to know every single detail of the axon. But we do know what we've learned from the FLOC contract. And we know what we want to do better in this contract. And I'm going to let him address that. Right now we're paying roughly $31,000 between me and the school for $155,000 over five years. This would be $140,000, a savings of roughly $15,000 over five years. It'd be $28,000 share between us and the school. So it'd be roughly $14,000 apiece before taxes. So the difference in price is not enormous, but the savings combined with the integration with our body cams, if we have a hot list alert, we can cue that, and it'll automatically go to the evidence.com, which the city attorney has access to, to prepare for court. Makes sense. It's something we probably should have done before. So, why I do not recommend building our own system. We've evaluated this. I'm gonna get Ms. Denise with DCR to speak about it. That way it's not coming from Brad Hobbs' opinion. You're getting somebody that knows a little bit about this. The internal system would require Greenwood to assume responsibilities for servers, cloud infrastructure, cyber security, encryption, software, updates, security patches, authentication, audit logging, retention, backups, redundancy, monitoring, hardware maintenance, database integration, criminal justice information requirements, and cyber security incident response plans. It's a lot. I've invited Ms. Denise to come up here and speak. And then I'll continue on. But that's a lot for a city of our size to take on. And just getting one of those security clearances, as I mentioned before, would cost so much money. And I'm going to let Ms. Denise speak about it.

Hello, thank you, Chief.

My name is Denise Harris. I'm president of Diversified Computer Resources. I live at 3240 Osprey Drive in Greenwood. 72936. In my professional life, my company provides IT expertise to entities similar to the city of Greenwood based on the size of their network infrastructure. Our primary focus is on security, so identity security, data security. I'm not here tonight to defend any specific ALPR system. I'm not here to recommend one. I've got two things I wanna share with you. The first is about the difficulty the city would face in trying to do a build your own ALPR system and the liability I think that you're facing. The second is just a summary of the changes that flock safety has made in layman's terms. I know there's a lot of discussion going on. Obviously, there's been a lot of research done. It can get really confusing. So I did do a four-point summary of what has changed as you're trying to compare systems. I did talk with Sergeant Mahan. He could not be here this evening, and so the information that I'm sharing aligns with what he and I discussed. We are on the same page. We are not of a difference of opinion. First and foremost, all ALPR solutions have to integrate with the National Crime Information Center, so NCIC. To do that, a self-hosted system will have to meet their criteria and that is going to be extremely time consuming. You still have about a year and four months left on your contract, is that right, 27, 28, two years left on your contract? I don't know if you could get it done in that period of time, to be honest with you. It's time consuming. To get that approval, You're going to have to have a custom written application program interface between the hardware and NCIC. So there are open source products that do the software part of the ALPR, but open source means that everybody that uses it has the opportunity to contribute. If we are concerned about a vendor that does nothing but this, I would be very concerned about a vendor that's running on an open source platform where everybody using the product can contribute. So I don't think that's a good way to go. So that puts us back to this has to be written. And that's going to be time consuming. Once that API is developed, it also has to integrate with storage that meets the FedRAMP. compliance that the chief referred to, that FedRAMP compliance deals strictly with cloud storage providers dealing with federal agencies. So FedRAMP doesn't just apply to the ALPR industry. It applies to any cloud provider storing anything for a federal agency um flock does meet that and again i'm not defending them but it's a class b certification so there's class a b c d they're class b certification it would be difficult to achieve that in other words to prove that the api is going to work properly with the requirements for FedRAMP and integrate with NCIC. So it would be a challenge. In addition, that software is going to have to have retention functions that meet legal requirements, and it's going to have to have audit and reporting functions that meet legal requirements. That's aside from any departmental requirements. The benefit of dealing with a vendor that does this for a living is they have the resources to enter the market, develop the platform, meet the requirements, and if they are an ethical company, ensure they're doing everything by the book, by the law. So I just don't see that for $33,000 a year, the city's going to be able to put together a build-your-own-solution that's going to meet all this. I don't think that's feasible. The only way it could happen is if you leveraged an open source ALPR application. Again, that means that by its very definition, everyone that uses it adds to the capability of the platform and increases the functionality, but it also makes it more difficult to secure. In my professional opinion, I just don't think it's viable at the Budget that you're dealing with I don't think it's a small budget. I just don't think it's it's what the city wants to be spending their money doing the other thing even if you even if you get to the point and say We've got a camera vendor who'll take responsibility for that and we've got an API written by somebody That we can use and we can put this together ourselves they're still the liabilities that come from what we're arguing or concerned about the flock, right? Surveillance and where does it fall into the Fourth Amendment? So those software companies do take some responsibility for ensuring that they are complying with legal guidelines, and to put the burden back on the city, I don't think that is reasonable. If the city attorney says don't worry about it, it's all good. then you still have civil and operational liability issues. So now you've got to be sure that your solution addresses misuse or data breaches and addresses managing public records or retention failures. So I think the city's cybersecurity insurance would probably go up. And I don't recommend doing this. I think you need to find another vendor if you are just not happy with what you have. I did, and this is not something you asked me to do. I told you earlier I had this. I'm going to give this to the council. There are four things that flock change. So whether you can get out of the contract or not out of the contract, This is a layman's version of what they've done. So in trying to decide, um, is it a good idea? Not a good idea. I mean, I defer to what the chief thinks his department needs to do. These are things that, um, Sergeant Manhattan and I also discussed. And so it just kind of breaks down. Why did they change to a seven day retention period? Um, what does evidence mode mean? what do their audits look like, what are they doing about proactive lockouts. And I think it's important to understand those because for at least some period of time you're still using that technology. So I'm going to give these to the council and then turn this back over to the chief.

I most certainly respect her opinion.

I want you to look at it another way.

The reason why we're here is because we got bad actors, bad police officers, and we're talking about doing a system completely that the city does. There's no third party to catch bad actors. I want you to think about it that way. That would be us doing it internally at a cost that we couldn't do, an IT technology company that they probably could do it, but internally, I don't think we could ever do. So, moving on. During this review, I also talked to my peers. I spoke to Fort Smith Police Chief Danny Baker, Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer, Both have told me they have no intention of discontinuing their LPR program. Chief Baker went on to say particularly concerned about it. Losing that capability would mean for Fort Smith the ability to fight crime would be devastating. Ultimately, every community must make its own decision, but their message was me, was consistent. They believe LPR technology is valuable and neither intends to eliminate it. Chief Poynter said, obviously we know what happened in Alma in the 90s. He has caught no feedback, no scrutiny, because they understand. Their city knows what it's like to lose somebody to a kidnapping. Spoke to Greenwood School District Superintendent John Cecila and his team. specifically asked whether school district would continue their partnership with Greenwood if we changed LPR vendors. Mr. Cecil advised as long as the price remains reasonably comparable, district would be willing to continue its partnership. He went on to say that his team and he has seen firsthand how we use this technology and how the public safety value that it provides to the school and our community. Something else that stood out to me is LPRs, they're unbiased. Not only do they catch criminals abducting children, also, as we've seen, identifies criminals wearing a badge as well. It's unbiased. Those criminals wearing the badge, Washington Post sourced, that's who sourced this, 69 police officers abused of LPR. 69 police officers is what we're talking about.

None in Arkansas.

770,000 roughly cops. But that's what's hitting the news, that's what the headlines are. That's Washington Post sourced, that's not Brad Hobbs' opinion. So the discussion may be a little bigger than the LPRs. We know what time of year it is. We know where we're at politically. As the council is aware, I requested an American-made public safety drone in last year's budget. We discussed this in great detail. Just wasn't able to make it happen because of the budget. I feel like the request was well received at the time from the council. And unfortunately, because of the budget, we weren't able to get one. I'll be asking for another one this year. Jerome could help us clear. Well, let me go back. The request was not made because the police department wants another way to conduct general surveillance of our community. It was requested because sometimes a camera could go somewhere that sending an officer or a firefighter would create unnecessary danger on rooftops. Dangerous attics that are, I don't want my officers putting their head in. I can put a camera in there or a drone and clear an attic before I put a guy up there's head. I can get on top of rooftops at Friday night's football games or over here at the courthouse or any tall building and clear it quickly. As we've seen, Charlie Kirk, president, shot from an elevated position. Probably be smart to start being able to clear rooftops with drones, which I can't believe that that wasn't. Those are not hypothetical situations. We experienced them right here in Greenwood. Bell Park man falls down, put a drone on the backside of it and see what kind of response we need for recovery. Do we utilize an ATV or do we need a rope team? Can we get ambulance back to a certain point? Y'all know why I want them and it'll help both me and the fire department. We can put it over the top of fires and see where we need our assets. So My question to y'all is every time we try to buy something that has a camera attached to it, are we gonna go through this same process? Does it have a legitimate public safety benefit is what I think we should have. Are there reasonable limits around it, which if I get a drone, I'm gonna send somebody to the real pilot school, which we talked about, it's expensive. Can we audit it? Can we hold people accountable for misuse? Can we help protect citizens, police officers, and firefighters? I do believe Greenwood can protect public safety and individual privacy at the same time. So you say, well, do you have proof that you can do both? And I would say, already, we're doing it. We're doing it through our Axon body cameras. We're storing the information properly. It's being uploaded properly. There have not been any breaches. And I think that this is gonna only benefit us more by going to Axon. We've already made the changes, have you seen, with Flock? And we'll continue to make changes as we need to make this better. Remain, Flock remains a viable system. It's just like Apple's phones. They've done updates to make it better, to do so you couldn't breach it, or security updates, or iOS updates. Flock has listened to their customers. They've changed the data retention. They've changed this. They've changed this. But unfortunately, I do think it's a little too late. I think Axon might be the better system, and based on my conversations with the reps, I really like what they had to say. CEO just had a podcast talking about this. I'm talking about Axon's CEO. I wish I would have wrote his name down, but it's on the internet. There's a panel of three, and he tells, which I told the city attorney this, this will be good if we ever need it for court. He says at no time will their company ever use facial recognition software, and at no time will their company ever sell data to third parties. The CEO made that claim, and it's easily available to see. So does Flock work? Yes, it's proven itself. We know it works. The question is which platform is the best. That's what I was asked to do, is to see if there was a better company out there. I have presented the contract to the city attorney. Again, he's going to go over it. But I do believe Axon's probably our better company moving forward. I think it's more secure. I think with the ability to be encrypted on two different platforms, and if you broke into one, you'd have to break into the other and somehow combine them back.

That really stuck with me.

So, closing. My job is to fight for tools, the training, the personnel, and resources I believe can help make Greenwood the safest community that we can reasonably make it. I understand the concerns surrounding LPR. The city attorney has addressed those Fourth Amendment rulings in the study session. LPRs have been in use since the 80s, as I've told you, actually the late 70s, early 80s. They've been in use almost five decades. They've been upheld in courts after courts after courts. It is not a Fourth Amendment violation. It is not. And it's been upheld in the courts that it's not. License plate readers are. Now, as Mr. Dunn has said, the Virginia case, which the city attorney went over, if at some point there's one at every single corner that somebody can track you, then that might raise a Fourth Amendment violation. But the number of cameras we have now I don't think would ever be able to. be claimed as a Fourth Amendment violation. And the city attorney's, I believe, proven that. I understand the concerns about this technology. If the council chooses to discontinue the LPR technology, I will respect that decision. Our officers will continue doing everything we can with the resources available to us and provide the best services to our community that we can. Before you make that decision, I'd ask the council to consider just what happened last week, end of last week. 12-year-old girl, Spartanburg County, South Carolina, kidnapped. Investigators eventually determined she had been communicating online with the person accused of abducting her. The surveillance technology, LPR technology, ultimately found the child safe in Independence County, Arkansas. Spartanburg County Sheriff publicly said had it not been for the LPR flock cameras in particular, they would have been at a complete standstill. In fact, they would have found her quicker, but some of the cameras were damaged, criminal mischief, and unfortunately didn't find her. But this technology is useful for things that we don't, want to happen no technology will prevent every crime no computer system can ever be guaranteed to not be breached no camera will place a good offer no drone replaces uh... fire team or fire arrest firefighters or police officers the systems are tools sometimes a tool gives law enforcement one piece of information needed to kind of to find a kidnap child Sometimes it keeps an officer from unnecessarily entering a dangerous space. Sometimes it gives a firefighter information before entering a building. Sometimes it helps us find a missing person. I've not found a documented Arkansas case where an officer was arrested, charged, or publicly disciplined specifically for abusing flock, axon, or any LPR system. However, they have been arrested for violating NCIC, ACIC. The Sherwood case is utilizing the LPR, but the officer mistakenly put in the wrong tag. So Flock didn't make the mistake, the officer did. And that's acceptable. That's acceptable in the courts. I can pull you over. And even though I made a mistake running your tag, the stop is still legitimate and it's held up. With that being said, I appreciate the debate. I appreciate the candor. And if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. And I'll let the city attorney address the contract if you would like. and then maybe answer, I think there was a question somebody had, and I'll open it up to you if you have any questions for me.

Chief? Yes, sir. As far as the effectiveness of being a LPR between Axon and Flock, are they both equitable?

Yes, both of them are. I would argue that Axon is probably more secure. They both have high ratings when it comes to LPRs. They're both the top three companies. Axon, Flock, and Motorola.

If you talk about going down to seven days on stored pictures, I guess there's If there's a amber alert, silver alert, be it Ebola, whatever, is there a way to extend that more than seven? There is. You know what I'm saying? Because we get amber alerts from Oklahoma City or wherever. I mean, if after seven days they haven't found the car or whatever, I just wonder if it goes into the system.

As long as it's in the NCIC or NCIC in this case, it would be in the system.

So it could go off after? Yes.

The seven-day retention is for information that we didn't queue that we needed for evidence. It just falls off purged. It's purged from the system.

How long does that stay in the system when someone's license plate gets put in there? How long does it keep looking? Just until somebody's caught, or you know what I'm saying? Because it's a nationwide deal, which is...

So if I suspect you of a crime, or you have... It'd be until we dissolve the case, or we couldn't make the case, and then, as you know in Arkansas law, you're going to have to make some kind of closure within 150 days.

Okay.

Sir? And this might be a question Denise can help, but in... When you're doing a backup of a system, there's typically going to be a backup that's stored off site, maybe even physical material for situations, fires, disaster, things like that. Does all of the data that they said they're deleting go back to that point and delete all that data as well?

DAVID BURRAGE. Maybe that is better for you because I didn't understand the

In a disaster recovery, if you've got backups of the water data here, you want to make sure some of it's stored on a physical medium in a location offsite in the event of a fire because you want it in a fire-protected environment. And that's one of the things I never understood really about the whole system is in the process and how they deal with the data, is the data deleted everywhere?

like off of the backup?

Yeah, basically, if they have a physical backup on a tape or other medium that they're storing off site in Greenwood does this to protect our water data. And in the event of a fire, it's protected and recover from that. Okay, yeah, please do.

So you're talking about data retention for disaster recovery or business continuity purposes. When you establish a retention routine for backup, you look at the data. So it's not an all or nothing scenario. So in the example that you gave of the seven day retention, if their policy states that they purge that data at the end of seven days, that particular database in a normal backup retention situation is backing up multiple times over that period of seven days. But then when you hit day eight and that data is purged, their backup sets are no longer carrying that data forward. For redundancy purposes, if you want to create additional backup sets, in another location that might have a longer retention period, then you would be in violation of a seven day purge on your data. So one of the questions that you could ask to Flock or Axon or Motorola would be what is your data retention policy from a disaster recovery business continuity standpoint? And most companies have a specific policy they can give you that explains what they're doing. Now their software, like what's the technology that's running it, that would be backed up multiple times retained for extended periods. So the programming for the city, the officers, the credentials, those things are not purging every seven days. And you would expect longer retention periods. And then they are using cloud services. So the backups, in addition to the fact that it's hosted off-site there they have someone who is creating those backup sets for them and they can talk they should be able to tell you exactly how that works does that answer you know when we talked about you never know

It's worth the effort to try to find out if we could keep all the data house here. If we can't, we can't. But I appreciate y'all looking at that.

I would have a bigger problem with the old boy if he gets to put some storage buildings in with his cameras, seeing what all I've got, putting in my deal. That seems like more of an invasion of privacy than me driving by down on City Street if we're going to start talking about cameras or McDonald's or what kind of groceries I got out of Walmart. or the bank or wherever, I mean, there's cameras everywhere. That's the argument I always end up with, ring doorbell cameras, a person walks by your house every day, well, there's some pedophile in there. Well, I know that girl comes home from school every day at three o'clock and I see her on my camera. Are we gonna start making everybody turn their doorbell cameras off? I'm just, we're just going out, you know, just examples of there's cameras everywhere.

I don't. Mr. Dunn, if you've got a question, come to the microphone, please. Tell us who you are again, just so we got it on, I need it on record. I think we should have stretched while ago.

Yeah, we should have. Two things, one, what's the lowest data retention that Axon allows? Do you know that, yeah? A day, but not three minutes? And I only say three minutes because I think, is it Maine or some state that allows only three minutes?

New Hampshire.

New Hampshire, yeah.

So. One thing, I'm glad you brought that up. The one thing about Axon is you completely own the system. Completely own the system. You own their cameras. You set the limits. So that was the nice thing about Axon.

And then the other thing is the, You know, two-ton elephant in the room is the citizen surveillance issue. Is there a specific reason that you don't want to go to a system that just looks for BOLOs, alerts, or warrants?

Well, you're talking about the recourse.

Yeah, recourse. I don't know. I'm not familiar with those. But I know there's some out there, some products out there.

Sir, Mr. Pritchard, I need you to come to the mic to talk. But still, I need, sorry, it's just we have to follow the rules.

Yes, I'm just curious, not necessarily those two companies, that's just five minutes of research to find those two. My biggest question is why are we opposed to finding a product that completely takes care of the issue with the Fourth Amendment? and find one that's taking pictures of vehicles looking for BOLOs, warrants, or alerts, and one that doesn't record and store data from innocent citizens. And then third thing, Tim, the Fourth Amendment wasn't written to protect you against cameras at Eastside Convention Store when I owned it, nor my ring camera, nor the cameras that go in out there. It was written to protect us against the government, and that's what we're talking about. That's the big separation. There's no comparison. It's apples and oranges. Thank you.

Mr. Pritchard, did you want to comment? I think I'm going to answer that.

In the study session in August, I mentioned RECOR. I don't have that right in front of me, so I'm going off my memory. The ReCore, you purchased the software. You still had to buy the cameras. It was really you doing it internally yourself. The ReCore was only the software, and then you installed it in what you purchased. To my understanding, I could be wrong.

To answer your question, this system is alerting now to BOLOs once and more times.

protective parties, protective orders where a judge has said, hey, you can't go to the school to pick your kid up until we solve this case. As long as we have that, we know that, hey, this person's not potentially supposed to be at a school or a warrant. So that's basically how the system works now. You're talking about the retention. The only way, yes sir.

Could I ask you a question, Chief? Yes sir. What other uses are we employing besides those hot list hits? There's only two things that y'all could look into this data. unless there's a hit. What are the only two other reasons you can do it?

Well, you've got to have a reasonable suspicion or a probable cause, or a legitimate law enforcement reason.

And that's in your policy 3-27, isn't it? Yes, sir.

And even the Fourth Amendment, it says, protects you against unreasonable searches. That's right. There's been many searches that's been done without... a war so y'all miss our season they're scrolling through these plates just look i don't have them no sir manpower little system literally alert just by text message if there's a bad if there's a lot in there uh... and i know it's been said that uh... you know i've i've said that only two of my officers have access to the system every one of my officers has access their certified law enforcement officers in the state arkansas every one of them has access to a c i c n c i c and this cocktail technology what i did is made it like our evidence room where I've got two people, a primary and an alternate, that can add hot lists. Meaning every day your normal police officer just can't put a hot list in. I need to call this person, convince him, hey, this is what I've got. This is my criteria. Yep, it meets our criteria. Let me put it in. Instead of just everybody putting something in that shouldn't be in there.

And if I could expound on that, Chief, reasonable suspicion is a reasonable belief based on specific articulable facts that a criminal activity may be afoot. Is that correct?

As is or about to. Or could be.

Correct. And probable cause is a reasonable belief based on facts and circumstances that a specific person committed a crime or that evidence of a crime will be found, which is a little bit higher threshold. Is that correct? Yes, sir.

aside from hot list alerts those are the only two reasons you could search for an individual that has passed in front of our cameras our policy and part of the fourth amendment is that correct yes and i know that you know it wasn't received real well but at the time or at this time that's the only mechanism i have in place is to do an internal internal audit i've done that We have not found anything that would suggest that we have abused it. I've spoken to Ms. Denise, and the big thing I like about bringing her aboard, so right now I have my own IT over at the police department, Sergeant Mahan. He has an IT company and he does our IT. I've since spoke to Ms. Denise about coming on and being our alternate. That way if something happened to him, God forbid, or if he was terminated or if he was found to be doing wrongdoing, I could ask her to come in and do an independent audit. I guess technically you could say, well, she still works for you because y'all are paying her, but her opinion is her opinion, which I respect. I think she would provide y'all. But if we went to Axon, Axon has got a greater ability to do an audit. They already had the audit system in place. In my opinion, FLOC is gonna get there. They're gonna get to where, but they should have probably had this in place already. So that's, I think FLOC is a good system. We haven't, you know, it's been good for us. We haven't abused it, but I think Axon's probably the better system as far as the ability to secure data and the ability to find bad actors, which we've seen. We've seen the only thing that comes in your phone about flock is the people are abusing it. You don't really see all the success stories. Yes, sir?

That leads me to my next question. Our study session was on August 10th. Have we had any successful uses of the system since that time locally that you're at liberty to speak about?

you might refresh my memory we had one the very next day which was involving the school and I don't know that I need to speak about that okay everyone that I'm forgetting now I'm just asking out of curiosity there was one the very next morning after our meeting about first day of school but without refreshing my memory, I can't remember.

How do these systems work for like a, you know, a Morgan Nick at the Greenwood ball fields or a Melissa Witt at a bowling alley? How do these systems work to kind of quickly resolve?

That's a great question. That is a great question because that's not what we, we haven't talked about that. Going back to that, scenario and i hate to even get emotional talking about it but they identified a red truck with a cab over cab on it that system does have ai technology to where you can put red trucks you could have limited you could have found potentially that truck on the interstate or a lot sooner had you had this technology back then so that point you have reasonable suspicion red truck white cab so you can go in and well in the quarry well in that scenario right there and if you'll go back on the footage you can by by law you can set up roadblocks and checkpoints and search every car so you can definitely use that tool yes sir to go in there and try to find this person and you don't need a warrant it's reasonable you can do it just based on there's an actual kidnapping Vehicles are mobile. There's a clause in the warrant, clause about mobile vehicles. It's just gotta be reasonable. That's what you're protected is against unreasonable searches. And the courts have continuously upheld this.

How long is the contract with Flock?

Our contract is up, I believe, December of 28. I think the city attorney's going to address that in just a second.

So you're kind of wanting to let that run out and then transition to Axum? I would like not to have a gap, but I don't know what that looks like. Do you have an overlap where you're not missing something?

Yeah, I'd like to have one in place before we let the other go. And the school... is annual. Theirs is up, and Mr. Cecil asked me that, hey, if we do move or change, if he could know fairly quick, because he's starting to do his budget as well.

DAVID BURRAGE- So if we'd let our contract, you'd just say, you need to go ahead and renew yours for the next year, and then let's get the overlap with Axum the following year.

I haven't talked to him specifically about that. He did say that he would be willing to change as long as the price was comparable, but I think he would be on board. I would hate to lose the schools. The mayor asked me, hey, if we lost some, which ones would you want to lose? I said, well, I don't want to lose any around the school. You know, right now we have them on our entry points and around our schools, five schools and five entry points.

What the system you've got out there now, you said there's 11. Do you feel like that's the ideal coverage that you don't need more or less?

I don't believe we need any more. The one that is currently at South Coker was on Highway 10 by the senior citizens, but our dock is going to be widening that road. Don't know when, and they've made us move it. So instead of paying for something we're not using, we moved it to South Coker.

Is there one out there by the Boys and Girls Club?

I've asked Mr. Sundy if he'd be interested in, he's not here, he was here earlier. I asked him very early on if he'd be interested and we need one there today, yesterday.

Chief, what would be the scenario If we did not have these Flock or Axon cameras, would it be the equivalence? If we had to have an officer there monitoring every car that goes by, and then all of a sudden if a hot list goes out, then all of a sudden he's looking for a particular license plate?

That's exactly right. The officer can either A, the camera can do it, or B, the officer's there running tag after tag after tag through his MDT.

And, again, he's observing every car that goes by, but he's looking for that one hot list license plate or whatever.

You could even argue that this is even a better scenario because, say, I've got somebody that's got a warrant. I'm not pulling over 10 cars to find that person with a warrant. This thing has told me, this vehicle. But I don't want to get lost in it's got to be human verified. This system is a tool to give you information, and then I need to human verify, yep, that's the tag, yep, that's the tag. I mean, common sense doesn't go out the window just because we got a tool. We still have to human verify what we're seeing.

Got another technology-related question. So what is... What is the problem with equipping the camera to be able to do the match on the fly from the camera without sending that to the cloud? So if I have access to a database, a hot list, and I have a camera with sufficient processing power to query the database and delete non-matches on the fly at the camera level, why is that not out there as an option, just from a technology standpoint? You know what?

I doubt that that is a limitation of technology, as much as back to you have to meet the guidelines for what you're doing. So somewhere, the guidelines controlling the use of that type of video technology says this is what you have to do with the data, or this is how you have to control the data, or this is how you have to be able to audit the data. So I would have to go look up the exact guideline, but I don't think it's because the technology has to save it somewhere. I think it has to be more about what the government regulations are requiring, what NCIC is requiring would be my guess.

And again, the reason I'm asking is in a thin client architecture, there's very little that goes across the network. And in a simple query on a massive database and coming back with a negative response, and deleting the data at that point seems reasonable.

But where does the database live? And I think that's back to, I mean, you can't have 10 cameras all with their own databases and querying 10 databases, so it's going somewhere short term.

But if the metadata, I mean, if you're not sending the signature photograph across and having it stored somewhere, you're just sending a license plate read or a description. That's a tiny amount of data. And that goes across the wire, doesn't match the database, comes back, deletion. To me, that seems like that's where Fourth Amendment privacy meets with safety.

Like I said, I don't think that's probably a technology limitation. I don't think that's a technology question. I think that is a why is the system designed this way? My guess is there is some federal guideline somewhere because there's a federal guideline for everything that says This is what you have to do what you have done once you've once you've taken that image This is the security protocols that have to be in place And I can certainly look that up and find out for you if you would like to know I'm just I'm just trying to stay on the continuum.

There's you've got diametrically opposed

thoughts and opinions on this and the chief said I mean you can control just because they say you're keeping seven days doesn't mean you have to keep it seven days if you want to keep it for three minutes keep it for three minutes you know but there are going to be things that get lost in that period of time if you don't get that hot list through if the hot list isn't live at that moment and the data's gone and that little girl is gone, you can't recover what could've, should've, would've been. So I don't know what the answer, technically, I think what you're saying is very possible. It's just a matter of what should you do, could you do, and what do the guidelines say you have to do.

I'm just trying to get some kind of answer.

respectfully and no disrespect, I think it's talking points that are reasonable and makes sense, Honestly, they don't because we can never operate in that realm because we're gonna, yeah, you can say you got this camera and this system, but you still have to go and convince NCIC that you meet all of these requirements to even get a hit from NCIC. NCIC doesn't want to be breached just like we don't want to be breached. So they're going to be specific on what we can do. And these companies have met that requirement. And the data retention, I do think seven days is appropriate. I would not want to go any less than that. I definitely don't want to go within minutes. It takes minutes for me to just have a conversation. Well, is she kidnapped or is she just walked down the road? There needs to be some time for me to figure out what we're doing here before we just delete information. Seven days is a good retention period. That is a lot better than what we started with, with unlimited retention, down to 150, down to 30, now we're down to seven.

Terry, I see you keep.

please very Smith 35 33 oh whatever I don't know send me a Christmas card so are they interchangeable these two systems so you can still see people's data on what like they can send you something on a hot list you can still track it together the two different systems or is your step only just whoever has axiom Flock right now? If you change systems, are they interchangeable?

Yeah, I understand what you're saying now. No, they're not. Is that a deal?

I mean, if a lot of people have flock, then would we get more information if we're at the same time?

Well, that's where we're at now. Flock has saturated the market and all this sharing.

Flock has done a good job.

We don't want to share, right?

We were sharing, but we have stopped sharing and me a letter or something, give me a case number to go along with it, instead of just a blanket, here you go, have this information. That's what we've done. That's what we've done in the meantime to stop some of this.

Anyone have a question? It's a license plate reader, but how do you search Red Track with white caps?

You'd have to actually go there. of what the car is, what the maintenance is. That's where they're talking about AI, the artificial intelligence. So say let's drive.

Tag office somehow?

The tag office communicates with NCIC. So going back to your question about how do you determine what vehicle that is, is that system, I don't know what kind of car you drive, I drive a Ford truck. It's pitch dark, I don't see the make of the truck, but I can make out the wheel on it. That AI is able to search the database of vehicles and say, that's a Ford F-150 wheel. So now, yeah, some type of a vehicle to, you gotta start it.

Well, I like it, so sorry.

It's not using facial recognition, this system, or the axon system. Sorry, what?

And I want one at the Boys and Girls Club. So let's make that happen.

Yes, sir, Mr. .

So Brian Pritchard, one at Agent Overdrive. With everything that's been said, I've been trying to find a compromise, because I'm not completely opposed to one or the other. LPR has been around for 50 years. I'm fine with that. I don't like that they went to the data retention. That's the part that I don't like. So, Chew Hobbs, you might be able to answer this question. Everybody wants to say this poor girl in South Carolina, and I completely understand that. But if she passed 30 cameras to get to Independence County in Arkansas, we didn't need to retain the 100,000 vehicles that passed those 30 cameras to find her. If you have scan and detect, it would have left breadcrumbs. Every time she passed a flock camera, it would alert it on the hit list that this car has passed. And the next city, it's passed. The next city, it's passed. How much information do you need if there's a hit list in Greenwood, Arkansas that a kidnapped victim was scanned? You don't need to retain the information, you just need to go Pull the vehicle over. So where does the retention come into versus the scan and the delete? Hey, Brad, can I speak to that?

Yes, sir. So a good friend of mine here in town has two daughters. This is a personal situation with me. They were stopped at Target in Fort Smith, followed to Poteau, back to Fort Smith, and then back to Greenwood. That vehicle was not on any bolo, any wanted list. So retaining that information for seven days allowed officers to build a case against this individual knowing these young lady's car that this vehicle was following them from Fort Smith to Poteau, back to Fort Smith to Greenwood. And so it didn't necessarily allow them to catch that person immediately, but it allowed them to create a case that he was stalking and in the process of kidnapping either one or both of them.

Okay, thank you for that. Because like I said, you just have these concerns of why you have to retain that information and having reasons may change some people's mind. Thank you.

Any others? Also, Chief, I was just thinking in regards to Mr. Pritchard's question about when we voted on it back there in 2023, then Chief Dawson did lay out that you know, these cameras have been in existence, you know, for a while, and that they were really just an additional tool for the police department to use in order to hopefully apprehend criminals, you know, and also keep our city safe. And so that's what we were, you know, voting on was just an additional tool that the police department could use. And I was aware of what I was voting on when we voted on it back there in 2023.

my statement last month, I think I said, I didn't know exactly what we're my point of that is I don't think I didn't know the extent of it. We knew we all knew what Chief Dawson told us. And Chief Dawson told us the truth. Like, like, Calvin Brown just explained, but all of this. I don't I didn't know. I'm not going to speak for anybody else. But anyway, chief,

If y'all have any more questions. I think seven days is a reasonable amount of time. I think it's realistic.

Just to clarify, I think on what Mr. Meeker was saying, it gives you the opportunity to perform a more thorough investigation. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes, sir.

And in that process, you're not scanning through all the pictures that we took. You're looking for that particular...

If we can identify something as a suspect vehicle. which is reasonable. And so let's say.

Which doesn't require a warrant to do a stop.

Nope.

Or if you have the tag, you can go back and look.

Or if you got the tag, you can go back. So say, let's use the scenario of the reading door camera. Mr. Terry says, hey, I know that that vehicle came by my house. It was read, okay, and there was a crime in his area. Put that information in the system and you could potentially identify a vehicle days later. I think seven days is reasonable, but you still need to be able to do that research and hopefully find a suspect.

Yes, sir.

I got one question just for clarity.

I think I understand this.

I don't know everything there was about flock cameras and ALPRs. So is it ACIC?

It was NCIC. NCIC.

So it goes kind of back to what Terry was saying. That's the hub. And regardless if you're Little Rock's running flock and Greenwood's running Axion, it's when there's an alert put into that system, not the camera system, regardless of what camera you're running, gets alerts on that. Is that right? Okay. Right, yeah. But that's the hub where the data is stored. so so therefore all camera systems will talk to each not necessarily talk to each other but through that hub they will yes sir

The biggest concern a lot of the citizens seem to have is for against the misuse or against the Fourth Amendment or different things like that, unjust I guess. So one of the things that I did ask earlier and I'm gonna ask Mr. Plummer again to address it is if we keep the LPRs and we keep the hit list and even if we maintain seven days, which you're kind of convincing me that may be a great idea, I still would like to have, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, jurisdictional justification, almost like probable cause, maybe a warrant to have to go back and research that. And that would also protect our people that are looking through that data that you can't just look through data for no reason you actually have to have a warrant to do so so it protects the city protects the officer protects everyone protects my information because i know you're not looking for something that you don't need to be looking for so even though i mean i read up on the laws and alprs and and the state of arkansas give the cities pretty much permission to do whatever they want to do with it So if we wanted to institute that there had to be probable cause or warrant to do a data search using the system, we could implement that. So is there a reason that we would not want to do that or is there a reason we can't?

Well, it doesn't meet the threshold. You don't have to meet the threshold to get a warrant to make a Terry stop. You just need to know a crime has, is, or about to take place, and you make the stop with somebody. So you'd be going even above of what the courts have said.

So that, what he just described, that's reasonable suspicion. Uh, probable cause would be the next threshold up was, which, you know, I think might be what this situation he described was. I think law enforcement had probable cause to believe that a crime had happened. Okay. they do not have to have a warrant to pursue that investigation at that point. They don't even have to have a warrant if they reasonably suspect that a crime is afoot or has happened. And that's not just merely a hunch or a guess. They have to have articulable facts that they would then articulate to a court of law or I would or whatever the case may be. But again, we already have the protections in place where they can't just go in and search Mr. Pritchard. They can't just go in and do that for no reason. If they don't have an articulable reason to perform that search, there's an audit log in there and we'll be able to see if somebody made a search for no legitimate law enforcement purpose or reason.

My only concern with that is that's after the fact instead of before the fact. What do you mean? Well, you can go do an audit 30 days from now and say, oh, Mr. Pritchard was scanned 33 times, okay? Well, someone will be in trouble for that, and I get that.

Now, the audit doesn't catch that. The audit only catches what we searched by a human. Am I correct on that?

I guess that's what I'm trying to say, too.

If you were to ask us to show you who all got scanned in the last week, we can't give you that information. That's protected by statute. Right.

But if there was an officer that wanted to scan me and my rule was in place that you had to have a probable cause or you had to have a warrant... he couldn't do it. Okay. We're preventing that from happening. But in your audit 30 days later, you're like, Oh, he did it. He did it 33 times. Well, you're, you're catching it after the fact instead of before the fact is what I'm guess I'm trying to say.

Well, there are many times that, that we pursue a case after the fact, uh, Many times. We do a lot of warrants through my office, shoplifting for example. For example, if you're gonna steal, don't steal from Walmart because they already know everything about you. They take the case down to them. It's signed, sealed, and delivered. They just basically have to transpose what they already were given onto their reporting document. software and then they send it to me and we get a warrant and that could be two months later.

Okay.

I was just trying to look at preventing illegal access versus reprimanding someone for doing illegal access.

Well, if they, if they, if it is found that they have illegally accessed, our database or whatever you want to call it. That's blatantly against our internal policy. That's against state law. So they would be facing termination, I would assume, here. And for sure state and possibly federal criminal penalties for violating ACIC or NCIC.

You're warning preventive.

Yes, that's kind of what I was thinking about is if you limit the searches or why the searches could even be done, you're kind of preventing the misuse from happening in the first place. We do.

You have to have reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Um, you know, and then in a scenario where there was a warrant issue, then I guess you could, you know, pursue it that way too. But in the case he just described, um, the ALPR data, the camera data was what gave us what we needed to get the warrant. In other words, without it, I don't know that we would have been able to prove that case.

I just, I don't. I think to me, you're trying to create a scenario where there's no bad actors, you know, and I think, you know, uh, bottom line, we're, you know, we're a human, you know, organization and stuff and bad actors can enter at any time and stuff. It's like, once we do find out that there's a bad actor, what do we do? I'm thinking that Chief Hobbs has come and our city attorney has come up with guardrails to say that we have tried to limit it as much as we can and stuff, but there's always the potential for those two people, one of them to be a bad actor. And no, we might not catch it today, we might not catch it tomorrow, but I think within a reasonable amount of time, we're going to catch them. And that's, to me, they're giving their best effort to limit it and make it as a reliable and secure system as possible. But bottom line, there's always going to be somewhere. And that's what tick tock and all these things have shown that across the United States, there are a few bad actors and stuff, you know, but they have gotten caught.

Well, Mr. Terry had mentioned all the cameras are available ring cameras, Walmart cameras and everything like that. But you have to obtain a warrant to be able to view that private person's cameras. I guess the biggest concern is this is a camera system that the government maintains, it operates, and there's no guardrails like there would be if you wanted to go get my ring camera, you'd have to get a warrant. But if you wanted the Walmart one, if they don't just hand it over, you've gotta get a warrant. There's protections against those cameras. There are no protections against the flock cameras that we just possess the data and say we're gonna look through it any time we want without a warrant.

Decades after decades of Fourth Amendment law in this country have talked about those thresholds of reasonable suspicion and probable cause. If we operate this system outside of what those cases say, it's illegal. And whatever we do with it would be the tainted fruit. We would not be able to use that in a prosecution. It would be thrown out. We'd probably be facing a civil liability of some sort. So there is Fourth Amendment protections in place that are decades and decades old case law. this reasonable suspicion and probable cause stuff that we're talking about, that's precisely at those definitions I gave. If they don't follow that, they're in trouble. And anything that they, like if they, for example, if they were, if somebody was digging through the system without probable cause or reasonable suspicion and they just stumbled onto a crime and they brought it to me and I didn't know that they did, Uh, if that person had a good attorney, they would, they would expose the fact that there was no reasonable, reasonable suspicion or probable cause that case would be thrown out. I mean, that's just, those are the, those are the guardrails that are in place. They've been in place for years and years and years.

And I appreciate you guys taking time because there's a dialogue like this that might change minds or at least make someone kind of understand why we need it, why we don't. And so just saying, you got it.

Hey Brad, how often do you guys audit your system?

Well, going up to this process, we learned about the law. Will had bought this earlier than 23. Law changed in 23. So this scrutiny has brought good change. We put the transparency portal up. Now we're doing the six-month audits, and it'll be on rotation. And that's what I like about the axon. System is they it's already built in the system you cue the audit and it gives you the six months It'll give you one month. It'll give you 30 minutes Going back to mr. Pritchard is That's usually the way bad actors are caught after the fact retroactively that's what you're seeing with the police chief that runs his girlfriend 600 times down there and

And I would also add, if something came to my office and I suspected that this was an unlawful search or seizure, I have a duty not to pursue that case as well. Now, there's always a chance they could bring me something and mask the report in such a way that didn't set off the alarm in my head and it gets to a court of law and then the defense attorney might expose it. And then, you know, but as soon as I realized that We made a mistake here. I've got to back down from that. I'm not going to continue to pursue that case.

Now, I want to add just one more thing in Arkansas. Violation of NCIC, which this is operating under, NCIC information, is six years in prison and a $10,000 fine for violating it. Why do you see people violating it? I don't know. Maybe Arkansas has got more strict laws and people are scared of it. I'm scared to death of the thing. I surely don't want to go to jail. But that's the protections that are in place. Are there people that do bad things? Yep. And they get caught and we see it.

Are these audits or... being able to see what's been searched for you available?

Yes. Yes.

And the, and the six, we've already been, we've been handling it.

Yeah. We've been doing the four years. Uh, the six month audit will be released in December. This will be our very first one. And the, what, What is the recourse for not having that audit out at this time? It's written in the law is the judge just may not let it be admissible in court.

Well, what are the checks and balances in the audit?

How do we know the auditor isn't bad? Well, I've got one person. That's what I was saying. My plan is to bring DCR in. Like our CEGIS, well, two things. We get independently audited by CEGIS. They come in and check our database and give me, I want to know the reasons, and this was before all this conversation took place. This is a CEGIS audit by the state. They come in and say, These hunter tags, I want a reason that you ran these hunter tags. And so we got to go back, OK, that was an accident. OK, that was a report. OK, that was a ticket. I don't know why he ran that one. I don't know. So we get audited that way. But going back to what you say, hey, he's doing his own internal audit. I have to do that with my evidence log, but also adding maybe DCR. I was... my intention is to maybe even act cause I'm trying to get a leap certified and how we get, how we do that is an outside party comes in and does our training records. So in my mind, we would do something like that. A third party come in and say, yep, this is what they're doing. This is what they say they're doing. This is what their policy says they're doing. And then they will audit the personnel. Hey, have you read this policy? Did you get this policy? Have you received this training that they say that they gave you? Yes, I have received that training. So we're doing our best to make it right.

Are these flock cameras only for Greenwood PD, the 11 we're talking about, or can state and county?

No federal agency prior to this is we allowed outside agencies to share information. Learning and going through this deep dive of this system, because I wasn't well versed in it when this meeting took place. We followed suit with other agencies that we limited access to unless you call us and say, hey, I've got a case report. I've got a case to go along with this. We'd like this information.

So can we assume the county is going to go buy some and put some up if they can't use yours or no telling?

They might. I don't know. I'm not sure.

I mean, going back to- They seem to patrol our town a whole lot. I was just curious.

Mr. Dunn? Yes, sir.

Because I think I've said everything I can think of to say about flock cameras. But, Travis, in speaking about reasonable suspicion and searches, I think the difference here and one-off by one-off cases outside of this is the fact that We've all been thrown in this one basket, this ALPR basket that holds citizens. I see what you're saying is that they already have the right to do these reasonable suspicion searches. I get that, that's legitimate. I don't think that rises to the same concern as it does with ALPRs because we're all thrown into that basket. Personally, if it was a search that was based on a warrant, that you had to wake a judge up in the middle of the night to get a warrant, so be it, I personally would be good with that. And the difference, do you see what I'm saying in the difference? One is a one-off scenario over here, and the other is, you know, 10,000 people thrown in this basket over here, and that's the difference. So I think to make this seem like an improvement instead of just switching names, it's going to take more than going from Flock to Axion. It needs... some meat and potatoes about a warrant, which Fourth Amendment calls for a warrant. That's just my two cents. Again, there's nothing else to be said about this that I haven't already said. I'm glad you guys are taking it up. You're going to make a decision. I know the state's going to make a decision next session, February. I know for a fact it's going to be heard in committee. Don't know that it'll get out. And it's being brought up at the federal level as well. I know Florida and Texas has already made it to where that if a city uses AOPRs, they no longer receive any state money. So I don't know where that's all going. None of us do. But anyway, that's all I've got to say. Thank you all. Thanks for this whole discussion over the last two months. just remember one thing. You're here to first honor the Constitution. That's the oath you took first. Thanks.

Thank you. Anything further?

Did you want to go ahead with your contract? I did have a little time to look at the contract that Chief got from Axon. I do like it a lot better than the contract we have. I think You know, when we prepared for our August 10th meeting, I was more in the gear of, okay, is the use of ALPR technology a violation of the Fourth Amendment? That was the main question that was being asked. I think we've all learned a lot since then. And one of the concerns that were brought up was about the contract and the lifetime irrevocable worldwide license that flock has basically thrown on everyone and I don't think anybody here knew about that because they just continue to update their terms and conditions online and to my knowledge we don't sign that every time they do it so I have questions as to whether we're in a legally binding contract to them anyway but we did a deep dive into that and I think I sent all of you guys an email back in August. It would have been on the 16th. It was after our meeting, after that question came up. And at that time, you know, I looked back through all the, and I only went back to October 4th of 2024, but there were one, two, three, four, and now there's been another one since then, revisions on FLOX terms and conditions online. And I think this latest revision is actually one that goes in favor of protecting people's privacy but at the time you know I was I was prepared to come here and ask you guys to allow me to reach out to them to try to negotiate back into the terms and conditions we originally signed up for which were a lot more favorable and thoughtful of the private citizen, I felt like. But Chief has brought me this Axon contract, and I've seen the back and forth that he's had with them, and I feel like they've been more forthcoming from the get-go. Maybe they realize that they've got an opportunity in the market after all the flock news cycles we've seen. I don't know what the deal is, but I can tell you that they have been in the business of providing a law enforcement tool for a long time. They do operate body cams. All the body cams that I look at from here and everywhere else that I serve, they use Axon body cams. And so these guys speak more the language of legitimate law enforcement purposes And I put together just a little bit here, I won't keep you guys bored with it, but based on the documents presently available, Axon offers a materially more customer-controlled framework for our ALPR data than the flock language that prompted the city's concern after our last meeting. Axon's general cloud terms state the city retains all right title and interest in customer content and we only would give Axon a limited right to access and use that content for specified service-related purposes. Flock's current terms also confirm customer ownership and now contain stronger anti-sharing language. That's after this latest update, of course. But Flock still retains the irrevocable perpetual worldwide license to use customer data to provide its services in a support and improve Flock products and services. That's, I don't like that. I don't like that language at all, especially in light of all the concerns that we've been brought by the public. So data ownership and control, why Axon is stronger. So Axon's master services and purchasing agreement states that the customer retains all right title and interest in customer content. Axon receives a limited, non-exclusive right to access, process, store, transmit, and otherwise use that content solely to provide, operate, maintain, support, secure, troubleshoot, monitor, and enforce the contracted services. So that would be, They would only be using it to provide us the service is what their contract says That's way stronger language in my opinion for the public concern that we've that we've heard The agreement also states that unless otherwise agreed in writing acts on and its sub processors will not train AI models on customer content So there again They're not going to use our data to train their AI systems. I We won't go into what Flock said. We already know what they said. But the practical difference is that Axon's baseline drafting is closer to our preferred model. The city owns the data and the vendor may use it only for specifically identified services, service purposes. FLOX baseline drafting continues to reserve a broader perpetual product improvement license, which I would advise against. Interagency sharing, Axon's current, excuse me, Axon's current ALPR operating model is favorable to local control. They're published. FUSUS documentation states that ALPR sharing is donor-initiated. Nothing is shared by default. Another agency cannot request or pull our data, and either side may revoke a sharing relationship. Shared ALPR data remains an owning agency's tenant and remains subject to that agency's retention policy. So it gives us more control over who we share with than what we've had with FLOC. The auditability, Axon also provides LPR audit reports showing internal searches, exports, partner agency use of our data, and the history of sharing relationships. Administrators can set separate retention periods for plate reads and hot list hits. And I would just be curious, Chief, if you could ask them. I know they got the ability where we can drop that down to one day or make it whatever. I'd just be curious to know what the capability is there, the full capability. Let's see here, there are a few things that I would require, or I would ask that we require of them before we were to entertain entering into a contract with them. First I would ask to narrow the FUSES analytics clause. The product specific FUSES provision presently allows Axon to collect, use, transfer, disclose, and otherwise process customer content for several purposes. including undertaking data analytics. Because product-specific terms may control over general terms, I recommend an express special term stating that identifiable raw ALPR data may be used only to provide and support Greenwood services, comply with the law, or carry out sharing specifically authorized by us. No independent analytics, commercialization, product development, or model training using the identifiable raw Greenwood ALPR data. I just want to limit it to that only. I would also ask that they opt us out of the ACEIP by contract. So the Axon Customer Experience Improvement Program is voluntary, and they say that in their agreement, but the MSPA provides for basic participation by default unless the customer opts out, which basically means that if we sign a contract with them, we're automatically signed up for that, but we can then opt out. I would propose that the final contract should state that Greenwood does not participate in the ACP basic or custom absent a later written agreement approved by us. Um, the fact that they would let us opt out leads me to believe they'd probably be agreeable to that. Um, And then I would ask to freeze all online incorporated terms. The final agreement should identify and attach or archive the versions of all online terms, appendices, privacy notices, product specific terms, and third party terms that apply on the effective date. No later website revision should alter the city's rights or obligations unless accepted in writing signed by the city. Um, that's what we've seen with flock. They've just on average about twice a year, just updated. And I don't think anybody really realized what was going on at Greenwood. So I would ask that they allow us to be bound by the terms that we originally agreed to and that no additional terms be put on us unless we agree to that in writing. I would also add ask to add data breach and liability protections axons general liability cap is generally limited to the purchase price of a device or the amount paid for services during the preceding 12 months and Consequential damages are disclaimed That was a concern that was brought up that's similar to what flock has in their contract I would ask them to Well, I think we should see carve outs from the liability cap for confidentiality violations, unauthorized disclosure, misuse of customer content, security incidents caused by axon gross negligence and willful misconduct together with clear incident notification obligations. Basically meaning that if axon has a breach or if they do what they're not supposed to do with our data, um, they're on the hook for that. And anytime any of that stuff happens, they should be notifying us. But I don't think we should agree to just, you know, that 12-month proceeding amount that we paid them as the cap. Confirmed CEGIS security commitments for the actual ILPR environment. Axon publicly represents that FUSIS and Axon Cloud support CEGIS compliance, and the MSPA contains security commitments. But the final package should expressly confirm and confirm the security standards, and any CEGIS security addendum applicable to Greenwood's vehicle intelligence fuses deployment. And finally, I would recommend that we have a little more protection in the event of a termination. The MSPA permits Axon in some early termination circumstances to invoice the difference between the discounted device pricing and the MSRP. which I think we looked at a little bit earlier. It's upwards of $200,000 because they're offering us a heck of a deal because we're already a customer. But in my opinion, the final term should make clear that this clawback does not apply to us if the contract is terminated because of their breach, their security failure, their violation of law, or other default on Axon's behalf. Right now, they would enjoy that recoupment in the event of most any termination. I don't really like that either. And really, I didn't know what to expect whenever the chief told me he'd found an alternative. Originally, I was gonna seek authorization from you guys to reach out to Flock, but I think we've heard enough from the public to the point that I feel like I've lost a little trust in Flock. has nothing to do with the gentleman that was here. I think he was just here to do his job, but I think the way that they've handled, um, the public pushback publicly on a national level is kind of messy. Um, the fact that they're now updating their terms and conditions, uh, in the right ways after doing it, um, about twice a year for the last however many years we've been on there without us knowing it. I mean, it feels to me like that would be a little hard for us to swallow and overcome. Um, but I agree with the chief, you know, if we do decide to explore another option, uh, I think it's important that, you know, we, uh, we have that set up in a way where we're not, we're not missing any time. Um, given the current climate we're in the news cycles that we see, I'd hate for somebody to target us because they knew we were down. So, um, that being said, uh, you know, it's, you guys hold the ultimate decision, but, um, I really like what Axon's presented us and I think they'd work with us on these terms. Their CEO has come out and publicly said some things that are encouraging. I've seen some of that too after he told me about it earlier today. A little bit different tone than the flock CEO takes whenever he's in front of a camera. Anyway, I feel like it's a heavy decision you guys have to make, but I feel like that we'd probably be best served if we were to explore Axon, especially if they're willing to negotiate on these contractual items that I've brought up. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

I'd just like to ask, what do you think? Of course, we've all talked, Chief. These guys have poured so many hours into this. I'm talking hours and hours and hours. And thank you, Chief. Thank you. Mr. Plummer and thank the citizens for your comments and your concern. And I think it's important to say that we've everybody's listening to each other. That's a that's a pretty big deal. My question is, how long do you think it would take? And you probably have no clue. These things that you've suggested that we talked about even today, getting axon to answer or I mean, what do you think that process looks like?

I've not really spoken directly with them. All my information has come from our chief. When you say we've all spent a bunch of time on it, he's been leading the charge. So I want to give credit where credit's due. But we have kind of tag-teamed it a little bit. And, you know, from talking to him and what he said about how accommodating they've been to his questions and stuff like that, I feel like we could probably get some of these questions in front of them, and at least get the dialogue started. I mean, I guess it boils down to whether they want our business or not.

And I want to reiterate what you said, and I think everybody in the room would feel the same, or I guess they would feel the same. No lapse. We don't need to be without something protecting our citizens. That's my two cents on that part of the short. I would like to see you pursue, and it's council's decision to make, whether we pursue a contract with Exxon or not. I think we're heading in the right direction. Any counsel?

I make a motion we pursue a contract with Exxon.

Second. Motion is second. Pursue a contract with Exxon.

As I see.

Yes.

Mr. Brown?

Yes.

Mr. Maker? Yes.

Can I ask a question real quick? Sure. When you say pursue the contract with the accident, are we talking about bringing it up the final terms of the contract for us to look at that?

Yes. I would think that we'd go to them and ask them about those conditions first before we pursue the contract.

Well, we're not asking for a vote to take a contract. We're asking for permission for you guys to go explore.

My motion was pursue, not pursue. commit to a contract or enter into a contract like we did the bridge or the sidewalk. It's just a pursuit to gain information.

Are you saying to present these things to them and ask them with them? Yes. That's pursuit.

So you're not wasting your time. You want to know what the council, if we're amenable to that, for you doing that, and I'm saying yes, pursue it. That's what we're asking for.

And I'm interested in finding out from them, you know, you were talking about their full range of possible retention periods. I'd like to know what the potential is for that.

Well, Chief, I think the question I had, you know, you said you could drop it to a day. Could you drop it to 12 hours? I'm just curious how much flexibility we have.

I would have to get the exact answer. I would hate to sit here and say something that I would have to get back with you on that. He told me that it was what we chose it to be. The retention period is what we chose it to be and I took that to mean as we said it. I would continue to say seven days.

And just to clarify, I would tend to agree with you on that because I think if we limit it to seven days, I think it might have been Mr. Dunn that brought up the mosaic theory. I think seven days maybe doesn't give us enough to start putting a mosaic together completely because we've got you know, that eighth day constantly dropping off. But in the case that he talked about, you know, 12-hour retention wouldn't have helped us any there. No. So.

But I would say, is there a possibility if you have probable probable cause that you can extend that seven?

Yes. If we had evidence and we queued that as being evidence, even even the policy that we have now, if I cue that, that I need that information for court, then I can queue it for preservation. So question. Yes.

What if you don't have a fight, but you have a red truck? Can you cue all the red trucks?

You could for that, I mean, I believe you could for that period. I don't know that exactly. I don't know that answer exactly, but if you had... Like if the judge asked or the attorney asked, how'd you come up with this information of this truck? We got a suspect vehicle of a red truck. We identified this is how many red trucks passed it. That was our starting point. So instead of interviewing... Everybody that came across, we would start with, let's say seven vehicles came. That's seven red trucks. That's who I'd go to first to start my interview process. I don't necessarily know that you could cue a red truck and keep it. I don't know if it's like a license plate. I hope I answered that. I hope I answered that. I don't know if you necessarily could do it thinking about it. I think you would have to have something tangible to put with it.

Mr. Maker?

Yes.

Mr. Terry? Yes. Mr. Tedford? Yes. Mr. Powell? Yes.

Thank you very much. Thank you all. I appreciate all this, all the discussion. And again, I'm not trying to put a crown on the chief that this has been taxing to you. Personally, I know it. I see it in your face every day. We talked every day. I know. I know what you're going through. So I appreciate you looking into it. And of course, Mr. Plummer. Thank you all. All right. We will move on to number five. Planning, ordinance repealing and replacing ordinance number 23-14, flood damage prevention and various procedure. It's got an emergency passage attached to it.

Mayor, council, in front of you is a proposal for repealing and replacing ordinance 23-14. This is a new flood damage prevention ordinance and subsequent code. that makes a few changes to allow for infill development and existing subdivisions located in zone a this was discussed at the last council meeting on behalf of a local developer that was running into a policy issue that was too restrictive that would not allow for them to build in the floodplain on an existing lot in an existing subdivision this does make that correction and you can see that on page 2, section 6. Section 6B, limited development within FEMA Zone A may be authorized by the floodplain administrator through the issuance of a floodplain development permit without a variance. So that was the way that we were able to circumvent the variance process where we had the engineering requirement. And then The floodplain development code was attached to the flood ordinances back in 2010, and they separated sometime after that, so I'm bringing it back together as a single document, and that code will also back up the ability to build in limited development and fill existing lots of zone A. I love it.

Does it put any kind of maximum on how high they can fill that?

Our grading and erosion control standards have a maximum fill height.

I mean, I understand they're going to want to get above the floodplain level, but you're out there and that house is, you know, four foot higher than the rest of them.

Our code will designate a minimum height above referred to as freeboard. Uh, so our code requires three foot of free board. So you get the base flood elevation determination and then you elevate three feet above that. And that's, I don't know how standard that is. That's just what our code is going to require. Uh, that can be adjusted if y'all are more comfortable with one foot, two foot, three foot.

So does that state that in this ordinance?

It does. It's in the code. Let me see if I can find it real quick. So once you hit the exhibit, you'll be on page seven.

be the first spot where you can see this i mean is can this this specific change be narrowed down to this exact example where the plant's already been there the engineering's are there the whole subdivision is there but three lots So, I mean, because I don't wanna say that you could put language in that says the fill can only be equal to adjacent lots because there'll be some scenario where somebody needs to put 30 foot of dirt somewhere because the next door, whatever. But I was just curious if that would be a way to do it where it can't be exceed the neighboring structure, for sure residential. I don't know how to exactly word that. But if you've got something in the other deal, that's fine.

Yeah, you may run into some other issues down the road if you do that. If for some reason the development, if the firm identifies the BFE when that was platted at 500 feet and that was 10, 15 years ago and the floodplain's actually risen a foot, then all of a sudden that base flood elevation is no longer viable. So your new development would have to adhere to the new base flood elevation, which then would be elevated a foot above the neighbors.

Gotcha. Well, I love this. I appreciate you doing this, because it just made no sense that we couldn't do it in the first place.

Yeah, I mean, it took some crafting, for sure, to make sure that it didn't just open the floodgates, no pun intended. But yeah, I think we've... we've accomplished what's needed for the proposed development.

Well, everything should have a, a fine print in there where, and it probably does where we can go on there and case by case change wherever we want to. I mean, that's what we get paid the big bucks for.

Most of the ordinances protections are in its restrictions. And then the appeal process comes to council where you can inject some common sense into the equation.

Well, I mean, I make a motion that we pass this ordinance by title only for the first reading. Is that what you're looking for?

Second. There is one correction. It's just a typo. Sharla, on Section 8, page 3 of the ordinance, it has prevention misspelled. I didn't do it. Spell check. That was me. Has what misspelled? It says flood damage prevention. I had to bring this over from a PDF, and Word didn't catch the, convert it to a Word document, and it didn't catch the spelling.

I'll note that. So, Mr. Terry? Yes or no?

You already asked them?

No.

Oh, I'm yes. Mr. Brown? Yes. Mr. Maker? Yes.

Mr. Powell?

Yes.

Mr. Tedford? Yes or no? It's unanimous and I'll read the title. An ordinance repealing and replacing ordinance number 23-14, establishing a flood damage prevention program for the city of Greenwood, Arkansas, adopting a revised flood damage prevention code, providing for the regulation of development within special flood hazard areas, establishing administrative permitting variants and enforcement procedures and for other purposes.

My only following question is going to be to the developer building this building and if this requires an emergency clause or not. I have one built into the ordinance currently. If it's prudent that they get started on construction, then we would need to move forward with that.

It had to be put in the title, I guess. I don't know if it has to be in the title. Yeah, it's supposed to be in the title. My apologies. Did not put that in there. But it is in Section 18, I think. Yes.

Is it prudent to get an emergency clause or is 30 days, what is the request?

I'm not going to say that we're going to start in the next 30 days.

So we don't have to adjust it. We can just pass it for the second and third reading and just leave it and it will become law in 30 days. Yes.

So no emergency and it'll go through three readings?

I'll make a motion.

We suspend the rules of waive second and third reading. Second. Motion and second.

Mr. Brown?

Yes.

Mr. Meeker? Yes. Mr. Terry?

Yes.

Mr. Powell? Yes.

Motion to adopt.

Second.

Motion and second to adopt.

Mr. Brown? Yes. Mr. Meeker? Yes. Mr. Terry? Yes. Mr. Powell? Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. So that means 30 days, it'll be ready to rock and roll.

All right, number six.

Thank you, Hunter. I'd like to thank him again for getting that done. I didn't really lose sleep, but it drove me nuts thinking about that. It's just strange.

I drove out there, by the way. It looked like a pretty good place to build it.

Absolutely.

Number six, ordinance to rezone from R1 to C2, Highway 71 properties, first reading.

Council, we had a developer come in and question us on a parcel out on Highway 71 between Hestercutt and Mount Zion about the zoning of a piece of property that we considered commercial. We delved into it and we found out that it had been inadvertently not rezoned when it was annexed. And so we went back and we looked and the parcels along that strip, including the fire station and where the rental store is, was still zoned as R1. And so this is a corrective ordinance to correct that to rezone those properties from Mount Zion to Hestercut to C2 like it should be. And so that's what I'm asking your approval tonight to approve this. It's got an emergency clause in the ordinance, but I would suggest waiving the second and third reading if you approve this.

Didn't we have a couple of these plants in the floodplain years ago?

There was one further down that had some floodplain issues.

Yeah.

But these are all those parcels right along Highway 71 from...

A to Z. Yeah, I don't know why we need to rezone a couple of them that they can't build on and they can't put dirt in because it's in the floodplain. I think that's what we just talked about.

I think that they're buildable lots, but you would have to position things in.

I'm certainly a big proponent of commercial lots getting used for commercial, hopefully not many storages. But it's a crapshoot anymore in this town. But anyway, I'd like to see the floodplain map in that area. Because we've been through this before. Had a lady come in here trying to sell all that highway frontage 15 years ago. And we told her these two plants down here at the end of the Boys and Girls Club were floodplain. They can't be used. She left stomped out, and we've been there.

Hunter is the floodplain manager. He might be able to answer that question.

And I don't care. I'd just like to know before we zone something they can't build with or rezone it, they can't build on. Hunter. He's looking. Oh, I'm sorry.

He's asleep. I'm talking maybe you're asleep standing up.

Well, I guess I'm not following. Why are you looking at the tree? What's the purple area? That's what they're wanting rezoned. That's what it is. Oh, that's what's going on. I know.

I mean, obviously, where the fire station proposal, their offices, the rental company, that certainly needs to be rezoned because there's already commercial stuff there. It's almost against the law that it's been built. I'm not sure how it didn't get rezoned originally. But the north stuff was in floodplain 15 years ago, and the way I've been reading everything, floodplains get deeper. They don't shrink.

From Cam Reynolds to directly across from Murphy's,

Now we were asked about this spot row here between the new highway and the nine acres between highway 10 and new highway 10 and we told the folks they could not build that up and commercialize it Different than floodplain What about over there off Jones Street behind the Van Gorder's property is. I think the Johnson's, Mike and Little Mike had lots there. We rezoned them here a lot long ago, but they couldn't build on it because it was in floodplain. One of them was.

They can build on those. There's an area on that property that's not floodplain. It's the corner lot where the concrete plant was. It's floodplain.

Oh, I got you. Floodplain.

Do they have to do anything in here in terms of providing a Like if they built on floodplain, would they have to compensate some of their area or payment in lieu of? Mitigate. For future drainage projects or something?

We could look at that, but they would have to adhere to the regulations set forth federally through the National Flood Insurance Program to build and elevate the floodplain.

Yeah, because that means the water's going somewhere else. We've been through this a million times. And we won't do it again. We'll make sure it doesn't happen like strip mining on the side of our hills.

We're actively working on storm water ordinance right now.

Hmm. I mean, dare we ask what's proposed to come in here? Is it just the Project X deal, like the Bass Pro Shop thing? Nothing we don't know?

Really don't know. We had a real estate company call, and they were taking over the property, and they were looking for an investor and wanted to know how it was zoned. And we started checking, and we found out the mistake back when it was originally annexed.

we certainly need to rezone the two that have currently have commercial properties on it i don't know how it happened yeah um yeah i don't know if you can pick and choose parcels right now i mean i This whole thing just feels slimy to me because we wouldn't do it 15 or 15 years ago, and now all of a sudden we're going to allow it to be changed. It's just weird to me why we didn't do it back then. I don't understand.

Well, I think we have more than one reading. We can kind of give it time instead of doing it in an emergency. But I think anything really on 71 should be commercial.

I agree.

And so I just make a proposal to accept the ordinance by the first reading.

By title only?

By title only, yes.

No, read it all.

Motion to second.

Ms. Brown? Yes. Mr. Meeker?

Yes.

Mr. Terry? maybe rainwater yes an ordinance amending ordinance number 23-10 for the purpose of rezoning certain property in the city of Greenwood amending the official zoning map city of Greenwood declaring it not declaring an emergency and for other purposes and yes leaving it you need to stick around for one more you

Okay, just skip this next one. We left number seven discussion on this. Yes, educational sidewalk. The ordinance asked for a motion. I've got it on my notes.

Well, I think we're gonna have a motion to try to move that up. So this miss could figure out what why they're if you want to talk about it, go ahead. I don't know if she was looking for answers, but I'm not sure that maybe they're watching at home. I don't know.

They've requested to move this to the next meeting. I'll make a motion we table this till next meeting.

Second. Motion to second the table. Have fun in Canada. Y'all have a good evening. Be careful.

Have fun. Mr. Brown? Yes. Mr. Baker?

Yes. Mr. Terry? Yes. Mr. Tedford? Yes. Mr. Powell? This is the table. Table.

30 days.

Number eight, parks resolution authorized sale of a mower at auction. I think Ms. Derry's going to handle this one.

Yes, Casey wasn't able to make it tonight, of course, and this mower hasn't been working out for their purposes. They found out that the center... clearance was was not appropriate for all the sloped hills. So they would like to put it at auction and set a reserve for it. And they he said that he would like the Parks Commission he's going to present it tomorrow at the Parks Commission and and let them set the reserve that they want for it for this auction.

So there's auction our only option.

Well, I was gonna ask, I don't know if all departments even know about this or those that would be interested. Do you

So we don't have an auction.

A mower. We're trying to auction a mower. I don't know what it is. Dixie Chopper.

He is wanting to take it to Looper's specifically for this kind of sale, he said. So he wants to get more for it than the vendor wants to give him for it. So he just wants to put it out there and get more money for it so he can get something else. So he wanted to set a reserve and do it specifically at Looper's auction because of the coverage it gets just for this one. We asked for others, other equipment though, to take up there. And govdeals.com was mentioned, so that might be another avenue of sales.

Well, we'd be curious about what his reserve is, because maybe the water or street department might have that in there.

I'd like to at least look at it.

Well, he's, I said that you could at least ask the council to approve it pending Park's commission approval, but of course it's up to y'all.

Please tell me he hadn't already done it. Please tell me he hadn't already done it. What? Put it in auction. Oh, no, I don't think so.

No.

It wouldn't be the first time.

Can we ask that we just, we table this until other departments are able to figure out what the deserve is?

I would second that.