Code Enforcement - Regular Meeting

I

can't hear nothing.

And any from the public in attendance. Okay, seeing none, I will we will go ahead and we will take a vote to approve our minutes. That item does pass bringing us into the next item on our agenda being new business. We have two ordinances to be introduced tonight. First one being ordinance 25,030.

Zero. An ordinance modifying ordinance twenty four zero three seven which established and consolidated special traffic patterns near Jonesboro Public School campuses and for other purposes. Whereas the city of Jonesboro adopted ordinance twenty four zero three seven which established and consolidated specific traffic patterns near Jonesboro Public School campuses. Whereas the City of Jonesboro has been asked by Jonesboro Public School Administration to designate Wilkins Avenue as a one way eastbound from MacArthur Park to Hillcrest Drive between the hours of 7.fifteen am to 8.fifteen am and 02:45PM to 04:15PM on school days. Whereas the traffic control committee has reviewed and supports the request.

Whereas in order to allow for education preparation by Jonesboro Public School patrons, our area motorist, the school hours one way portion of this ordinance will not take effect until 01/01/2026. Now, therefore, be it ordained by the city council of the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas that ordinance two four thirty seven is hereby modified to designate Wilkins Avenue from MacArthur Park to Hillcrest Drive to be a one way eastbound from 715 Am to 08:15AM and in between 02:45PM and 04:00PM on school days effective 01/01/2026.

Move forward full council. Second.

Okay. Have a motion and a second to forward to full council. Are there any questions or comments from the committee? Okay. Any from the administration? Okay and any from the public in attendance? Okay. Seeing none. We'll go ahead and we will take a vote on this ordinance. That motion does carry and forwards on to full council.

Thank you everybody. Moving on to the next item under new business, ordinance 25,031. An ordinance to the city of Jonesboro to place various traffic signs at designated locations as determined by the traffic control committee. Now, therefore, be it ordained by the city council for the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas to make the following changes as recommended by the traffic control committee. Establish and sign and always stop at Cobre House and Burke Avenue.

Establishing the following school zone speed limits. Success school six thirteen North Fisher Street, 25 miles an hour on Fisher Street from Hoover Street to Belt Street and on Belt Street from Alice Street to Fisher Street. Annie Camp Junior High, 25 miles an hour on West Nelson Avenue from Hester Street to DePuy Drive and 20 miles an hour on Farrell Street from Matthews Avenue to the school lot. Kindergarten Center, 25 miles an hour on West Nettleton Avenue from Lamar Place to Flint Street. MacArthur Junior High, 25 miles an hour on Wilkins Avenue from Metzord Lane to Hillcrest Drive.

Nettleton Intermediate, 20 miles an hour on Ray Street from Mary Jane Drive to Thorne Street and on Thorne Street from Ray Street to School Street. Nettleton Junior High, 15 miles an hour on Race Street from Willow Road to Donald Street. Math and Science, 25 miles an hour on Thomas Green Road from Highway 141 to Dan Lee Drive. Ridgefield Christian School, 25 miles an hour on Casey Springs Road from a 150 east of Sloan Lake Drive to a thousand east of Casey Springs Cove. International studies, 25 miles an hour on Rain Street from Richmond Avenue to Oak Street.

Health and wellness, 25 miles an hour on Roseman Avenue from James Street to Roy Street. University Heights, 15 miles an hour on Bowling from Kitterman to Aggie, and 25 miles an hour on Aggie from four fifty West of Airport Road to 200 foot west of Lake Drive. Valley View, 15 miles an hour on Valley View Drive from Thompson Drive to Christian Valley Drive. Jonesboro High, 25 miles an hour on Main Street from Campus Street to College Avenue. Fox Meadow, 25 miles an hour on Fox Meadow Lane from Stadium Boulevard to Caraway Road. And leadership, 25 miles an hour on Washington Avenue from Floyd Street to Walnut Street.

Move forward to full council.

Second. Okay. I have a motion second to forward this item on to full council. Are there any questions or comments from anybody on the committee?

I have one, Mr. Chairman. Yes. Just curious why we didn't stick with the same speed limit maybe in I see some are 15, some are 20, some are 25. Just curious what the thought was around that.

One of those is through the middle of Valley View School that's 15 and there's two large speed bumps and literally that road is between two buildings. I can understand that.

Just okay, I guess if you don't mind just to explain a little bit.

These are how the streets are currently signed.

So they currently have that speed limit already? Yes. Okay.

All we did is we went and inventoried them and we made sure that they were all covered by an ordinance as they're currently signed and then we can come back and address any oddities or changes but we just didn't find a consolidated list of school zone speed limits for our school zone flashers. So that's what this does is just basically puts it all into one ordinance so we can keep track of those better in the future. But as I said, these are the established speed limits on those roads already.

Thank you.

Thank you, Craig. Anything else, Councilman McClain?

No, I'll save it for you.

Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you. Any other questions from anybody on the committee? Okay. Any from the administration or from the public in attendance? Okay. Seeing none, we'll go ahead to vote on this item to forward to full council. That item does pass. Thank you everybody.

Moving on to the next item on our agenda being pending items. I know of none. And on to the next item on the agenda being other business. First on our other business is vector mosquito control report for July 2025. And I believe that we have vector mosquito control in attendance to answer any questions regarding these items.

Do we have? Are they presenting or are they just waiting for us to ask questions?

Believe we're just asking questions. Vector, can y'all hear us on the other side there?

Yes.

Perfect. Good deal.

Yeah, we can hear.

Great. Good deal. I'll tell you, would you mind giving us a overall update of the report that you've submitted both for July and for August and just kind of read us a little bit into the mosquito abatement process and the way that we're currently implementing that and running operations for the city of Jonesboro.

Sure. During the month of July, we we did we did spray with the ground units, quite often, each each night. We flew the city before the July 4. We, would and we continued that. After the fourth, Jonesboro would like eight consecutive.

We flew last night the North half of Jonesboro. That would be number five. If the weather lets us tonight, which it doesn't look too good, that would be number six. So we'll still owe you a couple. Mosquitoes have been, have been populated mostly South of town.

That's not to say they're not in the north section of town, but, but the heat seems to have, slowed them down a little bit. Hope, I mean, I don't like the heat either and, I don't I would like for it to cool off and then we can fight the mosquitoes again if they come back. However, rice should be draining in the next couple or three weeks. I know there's some late fields out there, but, hopefully, they'll be draining, shortly as well. As far as service request, we've had quite a few right before the July 4.

They have slacked off a lot here lately. We're probably averaging, four or five a week now as as opposed to doing twenty, twenty five a week. I have my supervisor here, mister Ted Green. You have any questions, we would, you can direct them to him and, hopefully, he can answer any questions or concerns you may have.

Sure. Thank you, mister Jim.

Just

to begin on the July report that I reviewed previously, I just had a couple of questions on this that I noticed that in reference to larva citing specifically that it was considerable amount of less inspections from year over year. Is there necessarily any reason that we're seeing less inspected sites versus what we did in July '24?

Yeah. Yes, sir. That's lack of rain. Everything was dry. Exceptionally dry weather. So we, you know, we don't act we're not finding we're not finding anything in water side, and that's why you see those numbers.

Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. I'm guessing I'm guessing that that answer is probably the same as far as adult deciding, that the total spray miles has also gone down from 1,900 to approximately 1,300. I'm guessing that that's probably going along with the light trap surveillance of the total mosquitoes going from 5,500 down to approximately 3,700. Is that due to the number Yes, being

sir. That is correct. And, also the heat. We do not like I do not like to spray when it gets, you know, above the 100 degree index, 105 index. So there was really no need to go out it if it being that hot, especially with the numbers as low as they were. So we just we just thought we'd save, the chemical that we can, for when it does cool off and and they do return.

I mean, with the extreme heat, we can't actually apply because there needs to be temperature inversion. And so if it gets to be too hot, the chemical sort of just it it doesn't actually hang around. It flips too high. So

Yeah. It will come down, but there's somewhere it won't actually come down on target.

Okay. Thank you, gentlemen. You know, I was going over some previous numbers in regards to budget that we had set aside for mosquito abatement. And I noticed that, in the '25 budget as we were applying a lot of our ARPA funding that we had out there that we had set aside an additional 241,000 approximately for mosquito abatement. Is there anything else that we can be doing proactively to get ahead of this mosquito population? Or is are we really throwing everything that we've got at it at this current point in time?

Yes, I mean, at this point, we're winding down the season. Once the rice is out, I mean, that's it will be pretty soon to be the end of the season after that. We are we are actually partnering up with Doctor. Alsbrooke for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, across the region and has been a really active West Nile and St. Louis encephalitis, season.

And so we are gonna be testing a lot of mosquito samples. Doctor Osberg also had, a sort of an interest just because, he was gonna be collecting a bunch of samples anyway. And so if we're already collecting a bunch of mosquitoes, we might as well submit them to him for testing. He's also interested in, any sort of malarial activity that we could be seeing. There were or there was some local acquired malaria cases the past couple years in Arkansas. So that is a concern because one of the primary mosquitoes that does like the wood in the rice fields is an anophelene species which can carry malaria.

Got you. Thank you, sir. Are there any questions from anybody else on the committee?

Just to piggyback off to what Ted just said, so how often are we testing mosquitoes for diseases?

Well, as of now, we're testing as needed. And so we have some mosquitoes that we've collected that we're gonna test at the end of the month because really it's it's really more like a month handoff. But just because we are starting to see a lot more virus activity in some of our other locations, we're probably gonna be doing a lot more active testing from here at the end of the year. And if we do actually find that there is a lot of virus in the area, we will respond appropriately with abatement actions.

So you just we haven't started testing yet, but we plan on testing here in the next month or is that what I'm is that what I'm hearing?

Probably next week.

Next week? Probably next yeah. I'll be setting my gravity traps out, the end of this week or first part of next week. So we'll so we'll start our collection of QLACs then.

And only when it comes to the traps, where are the traps located? Know they're probably all over, but is there is there a particular area that any particular hot spots that that we see?

Yeah. Our particular yeah. It's our particular hot spots are, like, Ashwood area, Partridge area. In other words, mainly South Of The Bypass. Not to say that we do not catch an abundant north of the of the bypass. Like, for instance, out on Shady Lane, there we usually have high counts at Shady Lane because just off the west of the ridge, there is rice there. And and the closer you get to rice fields, the more mosquitoes you're gonna catch in the traps.

Okay. Is if I can one more.

Yes, sir.

What, what improvements and maybe new strategies will we have going into next year? I know it's been dry this year. I know you didn't have to work as hard but what are some changes maybe going into next year that you guys plan on doing? Not saying you didn't work hard, Jim, just saying we being dry.

Yeah. Got yeah.

So we are purchasing additional aircraft to be based out of Cleveland, Mississippi so that just in case there is an additional spraying that we need to do from the airplane in response to virus or anything else like that, we will be able to respond quicker. So

And also, let's get back to, let's get back to larva citing. If we if it does start to rain quite a bit here in the next, you know, few weeks, yeah, then the larva sighting will, correspond with that. So and every season is different. Can't can't predict what 2025 2026 will bring. If it's a wet year, then, yes, we will larvae side more than we did this year. Again, if it's dry, then you'll see less larvae siding. But in in other words, I I don't know what is in the card, you know, for '26.

Any questions questions from from the the administration administration or or from from the the public public in in attendance? Attendance? Okay. Good deal. Gentlemen from Vector, we do appreciate your time and thank you for answering these questions for us.

Yes, sir.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay. That brings us on to our next item on the agenda being communication twenty five zero three four, a special presentation by Martin Smith of EDG Incorporated regarding a potential downtown special pattern pilot program study funded by the Jonesboro A and P Commission and I think it's worth noting that this is we're we're seeking the reason why this is being presented tonight is seeking public opinion and getting any notes from and we won't be taking a vote on anything this evening, but go right ahead.

Committee members, thank you for the time tonight. Andy Shatley from the Connectivity Committee. It was a project that was brought to us several months ago off of the shutdown of Main Street. Obviously, down Main Street and the things that had came from that had some negative effects. But one of the positive things that we heard resoundingly citizens was how much safer it felt for pedestrians in the activities that were happening on Main Street.

So we we were asked to kind of look into what changes could possibly be done to the 200, 300, 400 block of Main Street that would improve the safety and the environment for pedestrians and patrons and and individuals that are going down to experience our businesses downtown. Our committee approached the Jonesboro A and P Commission. I believe you put that on the the ordinance there. And they funded a study, and we asked Martin Smith from EDG to look at the 200, 300, and 400 blocks of Main Street to see what could be done to continue traffic flow, smooth traffic flow, and to incorporate protection for pedestrians, bicyclists, disabled individuals, those types of things, and interacting down town. So he's gonna present what his design looks like and we're gonna talk about that.

Any questions, field any questions that the committee may have. Martin?

Thank you, Andy, and thank you all for the time and ability to look at this little project. I'm here mainly to answer questions, but I want to run

through

and make sure you guys are clear with exactly what we're looking at as far as the modifications. And when I say modifications, I want to stress that our goal was to do this as efficiently as possible with as little to zero infrastructure changes. So keeping the cost at the absolute minimal as we can. It would be only striping, keeping existing infrastructure, which means that from curb to curb, pedestrian sidewalks all stay the same, and it would only rely on some striping modifications. And I want to show what that might be.

So the existing street, the blocks 200 to 400. So let's think of it from basically Main Street when you get to Washington all the way down to Kate Avenue. One thing that is very critical here is you know, we don't want to lose any parking. So, all the parking would stay the same. I'm going make that point clear and and so, our task was to look at making downtown a destination for cars that are coming to downtown.

It's a destination place. I I would we didn't do a study on it but I would guess that that 85 to 95% of the cards probably just move through town. And I think that the shop owners and so forth down there probably see that as well. So we want it to be a destination. If you come into that 200 to 400 block, you're parking and you're a business patron to the businesses that are there.

And then Church Street would be the bypass or as with the street closure, you saw a lot of different ways that cars moved from the south to the north. And it seems like it all tend to work out. So these planes are small, but to stretch it out, but you'll see basically what we're doing, have a 35 foot cross section from front of curb to front of curb. We have a seven and a half foot. I'm gonna just go and go.

So we can we can I can go back and forth? It's easier to read this one, which you can look at. So we have a seven and a half foot existing parallel parking. You have two ten foot one way travel lanes and another seven and a half foot parallel parking for 35 feet, right? So the most critical aspect that we have in this entire thing is that fire safety is gonna require 20 foot clear lane for servicing any of those businesses.

So we need to keep a 20 foot clear lane. So how are we gonna do that? We keep the seven and a half foot parallel parking. We put a two foot buffer. Other thing that we see is like getting out of your car on those streets, it's very dangerous on the active traffic lane side.

So we'd like to have a larger in two foot buffer, but two foot buffer is definitely better than what you have now. And then we'd have one ten foot one way lane. And then you would have a six foot, we're calling it a bike lane, but it could be a delivery pull off. The fact of the matter is that more likely there's not connectivity to the north and south right now for bike traffic moving through there. But it's a this is a free lane without car traffic, right.

And then you have another two foot buffer and then you have the existing seven foot six parallel parking. So that I know that one of the questions are there's a lot of delivery traffic through there's already ordinance on that. Craig probably could speak on that if we need to. But with the two lanes stop delivery trucks can stop and cars can still go by. And I think that was a big critical aspect.

So with the eight foot, the six foot plus the two foot buffer, it provides a potential place for those delivery trucks to stop for a short period and traffic can continue to move. So I mean, it's I wanna keep it as simple as possible. Again, we're not changing any of the streetscape, intersections. I will say that, you know, you have two lanes coming in on Main Street when you get to Washington, you would the right lane would have to be a would have to be signaled on the on the ground and signage to be right turn only. And there could be some you could put up some some just some visuals that that lane is ending when you cross.

I would expect that you're gonna have a little bit of time that you'll probably have cars that will continue to go and then have to merge over and get in. It's just part part of the process. So I'll be happy to flip this back and forth and take any questions, whatever helps you the most.

Thank you, sir. Any questions from anybody on the committee?

I'm just trying to make sure I see it. It starts at Washington? Yes, Right? It starts at Washington and goes to K.

K, yes, sir.

Sorry. Basically, we're taking, we're going one lane, bike lane or as you said, the transition lane. Service lane. Yeah, service lane. Speed limits stay the same or you want us to change that?

What is the speed limit on down downtown? 25. 25? Yeah, I think that's something that should be looked at. But we didn't propose changing speed limit.

Got it, it. Just curious. Mr. Chairman, have one question. If we have some of the data going back for the volume of traffic that goes down there, if we've done traffic studies in the past, if we have a history of that, cutting it down to one lane, what will that do to the volume of traffic? Will it create backups that's going to go from light to light to light? That's a question I don't know, but have we done some traffic studies in the past? If you can kind of give us a little bit of relevance of how that's going to do, bottlenecking it down to one lane?

We have a six month traffic study of what no traffic looked like.

Right, that was zero traffic.

I mean we saw it in real time what people did when they came on Main Street for six months with no traffic. And I mean, I lived down there six or eight blocks. It really never seemed like a terrible traffic jam.

I knew at that point, a lot of traffic was shifted over here to Church Street.

And I assume that's And there was a

lot of traffic also shifting over to Bridge Street that just bypassed it completely. But with it being open and still as an ideal for a primary artery through there, will people continue to try to go down there, but will it create a bottleneck? And that's something I don't know if anybody knows, but I'm just curious about the amount of vehicles that travel down there now and if you go down to one lane, will that create too much congestion and backup at peak hours? And I don't know if we have a specific answer for that.

Would that be on on the actual 200 to 400?

Yes. Yeah, once you enter from Washington Street to the bridge going down to one lane, are you basically gonna have traffic bumper to bumper from each intersection and each light from Huntington to Kate?

Yeah, I would, mean, it's a good question. I don't, I think the real time study is the y'all's best indication, but it was a complete blockage. So we do have to understand that. I think that individuals traveling to get to the north side of the railroad tracks are gonna bypass that situation because it's not gonna be advantageous for them. I think it will make that those blocks a destination place and you'll get I said 85 to 90% may bypass through now.

I would say that would flip the other way that we're 85 to 90% are going and parking and being a part of a patron to those businesses downtown. And I think that's what we're looking for overall. I would expect just thinking about this, the traffic is all going to come down Main Street and then you're going to be forced wash in around, you may have some stacking there at that light and it coming back on that on the right lane of Main Street. But that's gonna start to dissipate pretty quickly as people start to figure out other ways to traverse and move around. I don't have like technical studies and traffic counts and things like that. I think it's more of just the general feel of how human nature is and how you're going to traverse.

That was one of my things I was very curious about is impact it's going have on the traffic flow through there. And obviously, one of my primary concerns is going to be emergency traffic being able to get through, whether it's ambulances, fire trucks, or whatever being able to transition down between to get over the tracks.

So the critical point there is people trying to parallel park and having to stop. That's what I like about having the, let's call it the service lane.

Service lane, yeah, It allows you to

get out of, if you're parking on the right side, allows you get out of the flow of traffic to do your maneuvering to park. And on the if you're parking on the left side, that lane, I mean, would expect that if someone is parking, could, you know, move around. So I'm not overly concerned about that, you know, fire safety is the number one concern and making sure that that fire trucks have access and can

And

to it. Parking spots at the corner of Monroe And Main and then one in the 200 Block and 300 block for delivery drivers can actually get off?

Right, and I believe there's some now, if I'm not mistaken, and that at those pedestrian crossways that could be striped off, that could be you could have that still to where you completely have designated delivery places, but in worst case scenario, at least the delivery truck is in the service lane access and not completely stopping traffic.

Right now the default delivery spot is the left lane when you're headed north. Right. Everybody, all the delivery trucks just stop in the left lane and that in essence makes us one lane most of the time down there.

Right, between the parallel parking and delivery I mean, I don't think you're gonna see the concern you have Mr. Miller, don't think that I really don't feel that wasn't ever really an issue in our minds when we were looking at this study.

I'll just comment on that. We do have a delivery ordinance on the books. Craig can speak to that. I will say that that probably needs to be addressed because there is one spot that is on Monroe that no longer exists in front of the forum. So it probably needs to be updated. Be a great time to review that. But there is an ordinance on the books with timeframes and offloading on Huntington And Kay. I

think the last point really is the fact of how efficient this could be. I think this project could probably be handled completely within the city engineering department, simple overlay, like a seal code overlay and restriping and signage and so forth, which is pretty amazing when you think about the cost of projects nowadays to be able to pull something like that off.

Any other questions from anybody on the committee? Any from the public in attendance on this item? Any questions or comments? Okay, good deal. Thank you, Mr. All Thank you. Great. Thank you, sir. Moving on to our next item on the agenda for public safety is public comments. This is an opportunity to come for the Public Safety Commission and to speak on anything that was not on our agenda this evening. Okay, seeing none, that brings us to our next item on the agenda on the agenda being adjourned.

So moved. Second.

Okay, have a first and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we do stand adjourned. Thank you very much.