City Council - Regular Meeting

This is Tuesday, June 2, 2026. I think a lot of people in the community are enjoying the holiday season. The kids are out of school. So we'll go ahead and get the meeting started this evening. We'll start it. I'll lead us in Pledge of Allegiance. And Councilman Janice Porter will lead us in prayer.

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

under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please pray with me. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for our dedicated public servants. We ask that you give us wisdom and understanding as we attend to the people's business. It's our desire that we be found good and faithful servants. This we ask in the name of your Son. Amen.

OK, council, we'll move on to item number three. And this is roll call. If you would please mark your attendance. We do have 11 members in attendance this evening. So we'll move on to item number four. Hold your applause. There are no special presentations this evening. So we'll move on to item number five. This is items on consent agenda.

Move to adopt.

Second. We do have a motion on the floor to adopt the items on consent agenda. Would please cast your ballot. And those items do carry. Now we move on to items of new business. And this evening, we don't have any. So we'll move on to items of unfinished business. These are ordinances on the third reading. of which council will vote. And the first ordinance is ordinance 26016.

Ordinance to authorize the issuance of industrial development revenue bonds under the municipalities and counties industrial development revenue bond law for the purpose of securing and developing industry to authorize the sale of the bonds and the approval of a bond purchase agreement and a payment in lieu of taxes agreement in connection therewith. To authorize the execution and delivery of a trust indenture securing the bonds to authorize and prescribe certain matters pertaining to the project, the acquisition, construction and equipping thereof, and the financing thereof, to authorize the execution and delivery of a lease agreement relating to the project and for other purposes. Move to adopt. Second.

We have a motion on the floor to adopt. Council, any discussion? I don't see any. Anyone in council chambers? I don't see any as well. If you would, please go ahead and cast your vote. And that ordinance is carried. Now we'll move on to ordinance 26015. This is an item that's been held in council.

An ordinance to amend chapter 117 known as the zoning ordinance providing for changes in zoning boundaries from RM8 to RS5 for property located at 1601 Granger Drive as requested by Kraft and Toll.

Move to adopt. Second.

Do we have a motion on the floor to adopt council? Any discussion or questions? I don't see any. Anyone in council chambers? I don't see any as well. If you would, please cast your vote. And that ordinance does carry. Next, we'll move on to item number eight. And this is mayor's report. And I would like to remind council, the month-end reports are on the table down by Brian. for each one of you, so please feel free to pick that up. And at the end of my mayor's comments, Tony's gonna get us a brief summation of that. I think it'll be under an hour. Is that right, Tony?

Less than 15 minutes. We'll implement the five minute rule.

Five minute rule? Okay, well. You got it going? All right. So since city council met on the last May 19th, all of our area wide schools are out. So summer is officially underway. And with that said, please be extra careful and aware of children out about within the city. Many new drivers are experiencing their first time driving as well, uh, in this community. And so as we are well aware that sometimes can be a predicament. So meeting, Friends as well at city parks and community centers, they're all getting out and about. So please stay aware, be off your phones while you're driving and let's keep our children safe this summer. Our city pools and splash pads are open. Community centers are very active with events and the parks are full of activity. Get out and enjoy the many options like the Crag Wall at Earl Bell. They extended their hours for June, open Monday through Friday from 12 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 12 to 5 p.m. So go check it out. Grab a chair and a blanket and make plans to attend the next Sunset Chess session at Craighead Forest Park on June 20th at the band shell at Access 6. Listen to live bands. It's free. And let the kids play. A win for everyone in the family. And be sure to sign up your child for the NextGen Cadets Free Program presented by DARE coming up in July. The program gives kids the opportunity to engage with officers, participate in hands-on activities, swim and enjoy lunch, and learn leadership skills in a fun and positive environment. Different sessions are offered for different age levels, so be sure to email dare at jonesboroar.gov for more information. Also, don't forget, applications are now open for the Youth Advancement Council. Students in grades 9 through 12, including public, private, and homeschool students, are encouraged to apply. Applications are available on the city's website at jonesboroar.gov for both new and returning members, and will be open through July 1st. I want to encourage everyone to participate in the Plan Jonesboro comprehensive planning process. The community survey remains open at planjonesboro.com and I encourage all residents to share their thoughts and ideas about the future of our city. Public engagement continues to be a major part of this effort. Don't miss the next public input meeting upcoming this Thursday, June 4th and then on June 25th and July 16th. There will also be webinars and additional community engagement opportunities throughout the summer. So stay engaged and help shape the plans of the future of Jonesboro. My staff and I were thrilled to take part in the Special Olympics send off on May 21st alongside many of our fire and police personnel. It's an inspiring event to get to be a part of and we're proud of each athlete that competed and represented Jonesboro. Jonesboro also hosted over 300 cyclists this past weekend during the Skirmish Delta Gravel Festival. Those cyclists were dedicated whether it was rain or not. They raced the race. They did. We're grateful that Jonesboro has become a destination for cyclists looking for different course in a city to enjoy. How about the Arkansas State men's golf team? Congratulations on excellent season. They secured a spot in the 2026 NCAA championship for the first time in program history at a state and they advanced to the national finals. That was impressive. Our community really knows how to come together and celebrate and to honor. Thanks again to the Craighead Veterans Monument Foundation for organizing the Memorial Day observance on May 25th. While city offices were closed, we were able to attend and brave all who sacrificed that went on before us. As mentioned at the last City Council meeting, we are currently finalizing details on notable hiring and recruiting financial incentives. With police departments facing challenges for recruitment nationwide, we are modernizing our hiring process, including incentives to ensure the department feels supported and our community remains safe. Many of you may have seen the press release that went out this morning. Jonesboro was awarded a $42,358 grant through the Patrick Lehigh Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program granted by the U.S. Department of Justice. The funding supports the purchase, I believe, of 40 new armor, Express Raven, two tactical SWAT carrier systems for officers, and Jonesboro Police Department. It helps strengthen public safety efforts while reducing financial pressure on the city budget as well. Protecting the men and women who protect and serve our communities is a priority. This federal funding allows us to continue equipping our officers with some of the most advanced safety equipment available while also being responsible stewards of our taxpayer dollars. And being a good steward is a key part of the neighborhood cleanup incentive as well. Don't miss June 6th cleanup hosted at Fisher Street United Methodist Church from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. As you're cleaning up your bulky junk, drop it off, and come by and drop off some bags and pick up some bags as well. Now, Scott, it's also going to be a neighborhood. They're going to go around the neighborhood as well, correct? So if residents can't make it to that, they can put it out, and we will come by and pick it up in that area, correct? Okay. Let's continue to work together and make Jonesboro the best city it can be and I'm confident that our efforts together will make all the difference. Thank you all for all you do and let's keep it that way. God bless. All right, Tony, you wanna come up and give your quick summation?

Five minutes.

Man, you guys are challenging if you're gonna limit me to five minutes. April, please do not put up a timer. Well, I don't want to spend a lot of time and bore you all any more than we normally do, but I also want to just stress, this is the time of year that we see a tremendous increase in the demand for services across most of our divisions. warmer temperatures, school is out, and so we're beginning to see that influx. Now, I say that also saying that there's not very much of a low time throughout the year through departments, but the demands just seem to be greater during the summer months. And our departments continue to provide the level of service that we anticipate as administration, city council, and the public demands from them. And I'm not going to go through every department tonight. What I've chosen to do is I'll hit a couple of departments each month and just kind of highlight what's in those reports. And then overall we'll do a summary of some of the things that I think you're going to find in those reports. And one of the things that I think you're going to see is that we do continue to do tremendous things in spite of some of the employment challenges or employee challenges that we have. in our department. I know animal control is bare knuckle right now in regards to the number of animal control officers that they have available. We also have some challenges from time to time at the lower level positions in the street department. And of course, this is the time of year that you see a lot of the work related to our street department when it comes to, number one, grass mowing in the right of way. We continue to be focused on committing resources to potholes and different things along those lines that continue to need repairing from the winter weather that occurred here this year. But again, getting individuals at those lower level positions, those street worker positions, sometimes is a challenge and we're continuing to see shortages in those areas. even though we are short on animal control officers we've seen an expanded capability as far as um well let me just say this and i know you i know you you know this the shelter is always full uh and so uh you've seen an effort to try to increase that capacity in in the existing space that we have so we did add some uh kennel capacity uh last year number one i mean last month number one that allows us to uh service more animals uh that and meet the need that's out there. And then number two, it also helps us reduce the number of animals that we have to put down in our shelter because we do everything we can to be a no kill shelter and adopt dogs and other animals out of that location. And then as always, I think you heard in the mayor's report that community outreach and engagement with our departments is big. You heard about the cleanup that's upcoming. Last month, we collected about 10 tons of debris at the cleanup, and we always have good numbers from the north area that we're going to be focused on this upcoming week. And then I'll also add that, of course, this is an active time for code enforcement and Scott Roper and his crew. They've been down an officer as well. So again, that theme related to shortages, but there's been a, I think you're gonna see about 560 cases that they opened in the month of May alone. And so grass, you know, grass was slow for a while there. because of the lack of rain, but as we all know over the last few days, we've made up for that in some ways until you're beginning to see grass pop back up and grow at a level that I think will make them a little busier than they have even been in this report. And then lastly on that one, we just continue to deal with citizen complaints as they arise. I know I dealt with a situation today that's not in this report related to a citizen and not only some animals but some debris in the yard. We got a report into our code and animal control related to that. out other than I'll also say let me just put it like that we continue to focus on I know most of you are familiar with the bond projects that we have related to what was passed here in City Council some time ago at 9-1-1 Center we can we're in the final stages of that design plan on there and then caraway road of course is a priority uh those are projects that have a time frame to them and so we continue to march forward to try to get those uh completed in as speedy a process as possible um and then it goes to say parks is uh inundated with activity uh throughout the summer months and so we continue to focus on educational programs uh community uh events those public outreach initiatives that you're gonna see as a part of those reports, as well as our continued partnership with the local organizations. One of those is our, in the grants department last month, we worked a great deal with that community development citizen advisory committee. Again, it's a citizen-led process to review applications and to score those applications related to funding that's available for non-profit in our communities in order to meet uh our community needs that we don't have the capacity to work with so as we move forward we're going to continue to focus on i know hr has really been actively recruiting and visiting individuals as well as organizations and job fairs that have are taking place in our area in order to focus on those staffing needs in order to get our employee level of service up to where it needs to be even though again even though we see that decrease in that level we are continue to focus on being as efficient and as effective as we can with the staff that we have in order to provide again a high level of service and then we're going to continue to strengthen that public engagement and community partnerships. You heard the mayor talk about the upcoming plan meetings that we have and those continue on a monthly basis and then just continuing to address the public safety and the welfare needs of citizens here in our community. With that, I will Just remind you that packets are available here on the table. I encourage you to ensure you get yours. Spend some time with the data that's there. Don't hesitate to reach out to either our office or to department heads if there are any additional questions. We want to facilitate that as much as we can and give you information that we think is helpful to you as you engage and interact with citizens here in our community. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Tony. I appreciate that very much. All right, that's the end of the mayor's report. We'll move on to item number nine, the city council report.

Ms. Porter? Nothing, thank you. Mr. Emerson?

Only thing I've got, and kind of piggybacking on what Tony had to say there, you know, we had an accident in front of First Community Bank on Friday. And, you know, sometimes it takes a little while for police officers to be able to get across town and to be on site. Of course, everyone's constantly working. But there was a code enforcement truck that happened to be right there at the same time that the accident happened. And one of our code enforcement officers, Mr. I think it was Blake Nichols. Is that right? Thank you, thank you, Mr. Roper. And he was out there in his fluorescent vest and he was directing traffic. So everybody coming together and stepping in whenever they can. So it was great to see code enforcement out there helping direct traffic. Only other thing that I have is that I did have an opportunity to meet with the administration a little bit on Monday and discuss, we were talking through police pay and working on some of those items. And anyways, I think we've made a lot of good steps forward and we'll be trying to get some information together with that as we move forward. Know that we have had conversations about the incentive programs and being able to recruit new officers. The only thing that I failed to bring up in that meeting, Mayor, and something that I wondered if we could look at, is that with us being down roughly, I think it's approximately 20 officers that we've got down, is that whenever we do start building up some of our numbers back to the police force, if some of this unrealized expense that we didn't incur by not having those officers, wanted to look at doing something for the officers that had been out there working while we were down in our census count on that side. I didn't know if that was something we could look towards doing. I know ASP did that back a number of years ago and just thought that would be something nice to say thank you to the officers that have been taking care of us while we've been down a little bit here. Gotcha, thank you, sir.

Dr. Charles Coleman.

Yes, since we have the best cleanup, you know, when we have cleanup, we will be feeding the code enforcement, and there's a strong possibility that the code enforcement people will get a half a slab of ribs. That doesn't mean administration.

Thank you, Councilman.

Mr. Moore?

No, ma'am.

Ms. Williams? No, thank you. Mr. Gibson?

No, thanks.

Mr. McLean?

No, thank you.

Dr. Anthony Coleman?

No, thank you.

Mr. Heffner?

No, thank you.

Mr. Bryant?

I know we had this discussion. It seemed like Councilman McLean. It could have been two months, six months, nine months. Who knows when we had this discussion. What's kind of the latest thoughts since Attorney General Griffin last summer challenged cities to work on loitering and stuff? Has there been any new thoughts on any of that? Yeah, and I visited with the Attorney General a little bit the other day. I know he said we have another state law we need to update.

Well, and I think that is on everybody's mind. You know, we're seeing it, unfortunately, at some of our intersections, every corner's full, and how we address that. And so Carol and I were actually in multiple discussions last week, and it's going to be one of those issues that we're going to have to lean heavily on our state legislator.

Because it seems every city has it right. It doesn't matter if you go to Fayetteville or Hot Springs or whatever. And Little Rock tried to do something. Then they kind of backed down off of it. And I think they got some public pressure and backed down.

Hot Springs got sued over it. And lost. And lost. So, again, these are things that our legislators really are going to have to. we're gonna have to lean heavy on them this next session.

We are looking at some safety concerns. I do think in some of the islands, that's a safety concern. Being on the sidewalk is different, but being on those little islands out in the middle of traffic, I think that we could make a valid argument that that's a safety concern both for the person and for the drivers that are distracted by that. So hopefully we're gonna address some of that and just ask them to move over to the sidewalk.

Yeah, that's one of our... Any kind of backwards arguments to be made with the dogs, like endangering the dogs because it's too hot or something? And children. And children, too, that's true.

There are rules about state highways, but they don't apply if there's a sidewalk in place, and so that makes it difficult. You have to be 10 feet away from a state highway, but not if there's a sidewalk.

Correct.

So that, unfortunately, most of our state highways have sidewalks next to them, or a lot of them do, not all of them, but where the people are tend to have those. So we've been looking at that. And then, yeah, those are the main things. And we've also reached out again to see if we can get permission from the Highway Department to put up some signage, like some cities have put up, but we've put it up and it's been taken down on our state highways. you know, encourage people to donate to local charities that help people. Um, but our signs were taken down. So that's kind of where we are.

And that brings up a point to, um, councilman. I don't want to, uh, belittle the situation, but we are going to be very proactive with, I've already called in Chief Elliott and the Sheriff's Department, as well as the State Police. We've had meetings about gatherings in our community, make sure they don't get out of hand, how we can address situations and be united on that, because we want all people to be able to have enjoyable time and gatherings throughout the summer, but we're seeing that in multiple states, especially surrounding states, and so we need to coordinate our efforts, and we're going to be making a few statements there. I know that the chief has got several saturations planned for this summer for our community as well, and we just want to make everybody aware, and we're going to keep our community as safe as possible.

Mr. Street. Thank you.

That's the end of city council reports. Next, we'll move on to item number 10, public comments. Anybody from public can come forward. You will have five minutes to make your statement. Yes, ma'am, if you would, please say your name and your address.

Patty Lack, 4108 Forest Hill Road. Really, there's two things that I'd like to say to all of you is that I expected about a month and a half ago, maybe two months ago, I was expecting a more specific expense report from the Parks Department on the two volleyball tournaments that we had. I'm kind of disappointed that I haven't and is it important it was because I think along with me and a lot of other people and maybe some of you also questioned some of the expenses that were on that such as Potbelly, the hotel and all that. And they said that there was gonna be a more specific breakdown of the expense report and I have not seen it and it's been at least a month and a half ago. So I hope I get it soon. The second thing is that I don't know if any of you have driven by Simmons Bank Building on Caraway Road. There were five large trees between the sidewalk and the street. And I don't know about you, but I go through that parking lot and it was really difficult to see an oncoming car coming north. when I was turning left on that street. It's a very dangerous place to place these big trees. The trees are beautiful. I don't know what kind of trees they are, but that's not the type of tree that needs to go there. So my question to you or to, I guess, the city planner is, one, because I know I talked to some people at Simmons Bank, one of them have been hit already. So there's only five right now. But it blocks the view of the traffic coming on. And you look at daytime or nighttime and the speed on Carraway. So one is that does Simmons own those trees because they're between the sidewalk and the street? And who is the one that planted them? Who's the one that paid for them? I knew that we have a tree ordinance and it's a brand new building. But I think we need to consider those trees being removed and either being on the opposite side I know someone said something about maybe because it was a power lines But those are the not correct trees to be there They are going to grow pretty large but they block the traffic and it's going to be a safety issue and it takes one accident and but i know i talked to some of the people at simmons bank and they're not happy about those trees and they're okay if the city takes those trees and places them somewhere else on the property so i guess i can do a foia on who owns the trees they gave me the suggestion but if we know what it is i'd appreciate if we could find out so thank you thank you for your comments

He's trying to find an answer out for me. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. Please state your name and address, please.

My name is Edward Orr. My address is 2902 Breezewood Drive. And I came here today to speak to the city council. I've cleaned my life up to the point to where I actually tried to run for city council. I reached out to Mr. McClain, told you I wanted to work with you so you can better inform me on how this goes. Because I live in a neighborhood where I think The needs are being overlooked. I live in a low-income neighborhood, not too proud of it, but I make the best of it, and what I'm seeing is a lack of empathy for the low-income people. It's okay to put funds where they're needed to make things look good, but they need to be in these low-income neighborhoods where these people are really struggling. There's not a program out here to help a single mother. I've researched it, I've studied the law, constitutional, civil, just about all of it. Ms. Duncan, I read that report about you and the mayor being sued about something about destruction of some type of paperwork. Well, I wanted to come here today and specifically make reference on the fact that I've been a victim of that from your office. at the Jonesboro City Police. I tried to file multiple charges when I was wronged. Your office denied me four times to file charges, four times. Your name is stuck right at the top of it.

We're not asking for much.

We're not asking for much out here. It's hard for everybody. We cannot keep allocating this money in places that already look good. What I'm asking the city council is to help where the help is needed. I'm begging. I see this. I have this saying in my head. You wouldn't elect me to go... serve in a community where the houses are 500,000 or a million dollars, because I don't know about that community. So there is no insight I can give anyone about that community. So what I'm saying is decisions are being made about these low income communities where people actually don't come. And the decisions are basically nothing. We are all struggling, regardless of race, creed, religion. I don't see none of that. I see people. And for someone to claim they have absolute immunity, that kind of, I frown on that, because you have to be granted absolute immunity. You can't just give it to yourself. And with that said, I have right here my divorce decree. And right now I am battling the fact that my divorce decree was file marked twice. I signed it once in August, I mean October, 31st of 2016, when I went to child support court and demanded a copy of my divorce decree, three pages were edited and it was file marked with the wrong date of August. So I went to the city clerk's office and tried to get answers. They were dismissive.

I think you mean the county clerk.

County clerk. Sorry about that. County clerk. I went there and they were dismissive. If we are going to be in the leadership role, these people have to be leaders. You can't cut corners and then get behind that computer to clean it up. We can all take shortcuts. But I was told by my mom as a kid, the more you cut corners, someday you're going to have to make them step up. You cut the corners too much, you'll never make them up. So what I'm saying to the Jonesboro City Council, I have respect for everyone, law enforcement, everyone. I even applied to be a police, was denied for it. Whatever reason, I don't know. But what I'm asking is that we open our minds up to everyone, not just certain areas of this county. Everyone needs help. Everyone needs help. Mr. Mayor, I voted for you. a little disappointed at your leadership. I've read so many lawsuits that you have not settled. We gotta get that right, man. We have to get that right, Mr. Copenhagen. I'm begging you. Haley Boyd, I used to be her caretaker. She was injured in a car wreck involving a police officer. That woman's life is terrible because she cannot walk. And the last thing I read from the Supreme Court is that she may be entitled to $50,000. That's not going to cut it. Not for her. Now, this is not an African-American woman. This is a white woman. I was her caretaker. And the way she lived after being paralyzed is Copenhagen. We have to get this woman the needs the resources she needs to live her life. I don't care about what money she's owed. What I'm asking the city council is make sure Haley Boyd gets the resources she needs. She's paralyzed. She cannot walk ever again. So, yes, I have had trouble in the past, but I've worked hard to clean my life up. I got my record expunged, started to try to come into city councils, being a police officer, but it's hard when corners are being cut. My mom raised me to be equal, accountable, truthful. And with the things going on that I'm reading about, I can't see myself working in these settings and be the best version of myself. See what I'm saying? So I'm just asking the city council, like, let's, let's do a little more. Let's do a little more. I respect everyone up here. Let's stop putting funds where they're gonna look good. Let's put them where they are needed.

Thank you very much for your time. You bet.

All right. Thank you.

All right. Anybody else in the audience? I don't see any. We'll move on to item number 11. That's adjournment. So moved.

Second.

On favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?