Public Works Council Committee - Regular Meeting

We'll go ahead and call public works council meeting to order. First item is roll call. So when prompted, please mark your tenants. And we do have a quorum. So we'll move on. Next item is approval of minutes. Minutes 25,057 from Tuesday, July 1, public works meeting. They were in the packet. I'll give you a chance to look them over, and I'll be ready to entertain a motion. I make a motion we accept the minutes.

Second. Motion

and second to approve the minutes as presented. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Please mark your appropriate vote. And the minutes do you reflect to be approved? New business.

There are several of these that are similar. I'm gonna read one of the first ones, and if you don't care after that, I'll just read them by title only. But the first one is resolution 25,081. It's a resolution by the city council of Jonesboro, Arkansas authorizing the offer and acceptance to purchase additional right of way at 3507 Aggie Road for the purpose of the constructing and maintaining pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements. Okay.

Whereas the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas desires to purchase the following you described right away for the purpose of constructing and maintaining pedestrian and infrastructure improvements. Legal description follows. I will note that it has 1,155 square feet of area, whereas an offer has been made and accepted to sell the above described property for the price of $3.04 $65 whereas the attached offer and acceptance will be executed upon passage of this resolution, whereas the funding for this purchase shall come from the capital improvement budget, now therefore be it resolved by the city council for the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas that section one, the mayor and city clerk are hereby authorized to execute the documents necessary to effectuate this transaction. I do have a question. Is same it price for all those ones that This one is $3 a square foot.

All of them are $3 a square foot with the exception of one that only has 57 square feet, and that one is $8.77 a square foot, but that's a minimum purchase price, I think, of $500 When you have a lot that small, the smaller the site, the larger the price per square foot and conversely, but the rest of them all end up being $3 a square foot. I'll still make the motion that we

Yeah, we go ahead and second. So if there's any more discussion then

Okay. I have motion and second. Any further discussion from anybody on the committee? Anybody in council chambers or staff? Okay, if not, please mark your vote.

And that will be forwarded full council. The rest of these, I'm just gonna read by title only. Resolution twenty five zero eighty two, resolution by the city council of Jonesboro, Arkansas authorizing the offer and acceptance to purchase additional right of way at 3505 Aggie Road for the purpose of the constructing and maintaining pedestrian bicycle infrastructure improvements. I'll make a motion with force,

counsel. Second.

A motion second for full counsel. I will note this as eight seventy two square feet. It's a purchase price of $2,616 That is $3 a square foot. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Anyone in attendance in the council chamber or staff?

Okay, if not, motion and second, please mark your appropriate ballot. And that carries and we'll go to full council. Next item, resolution 25,083, resolution by the city council of Dunbar, Arkansas authorizing the offer and acceptance to purchase additional right of way at 3700 Blue Ridge Circle for the purpose of the construction and maintaining pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements. That is that's the one I was talking about. It has 57 square feet and purchase price $500 which makes it $877 a square foot. I make a motion before it's full

council. Second.

I have motion second for full council. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Anyone in council chambers or staff? Okay. If not, please mark your ballot.

And that's approved. We'll be forward to full council. Next item, resolution 25,084, resolution by the city council of Jonesboro, Arkansas authorizing the offer and acceptance to purchase additional right of way at 3704 Blue Ridge Circle for the purpose of the constructing maintaining pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements. Second. Motion second for the full council.

That one is nine sixty four square feet and the purchase price is $2,892 which is $3 a square foot. So we have a motion second. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Anyone in council chambers or in attendance or staff? Okay, please cast your vote.

That measure passes before the full council. Next item, resolution 25,086, a resolution by the city council of Jonesboro, Arkansas authorizing the offer and acceptance to purchase additional right of way at 103 Mark Street for the purpose of constructing and maintaining pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements. I take a motion to move forward to the council.

Second.

A motion second to forward to the council. That parcel has 49 square feet, again a purchase price of $500 which makes it $10.2 a square foot. I have a motion to second. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Council chambers or staff?

Okay, if not, please cast your ballot. And that measure goes full council. Next item, resolution 25,086, resolution by the city council of Joan Bargain authorizing the offer and acceptance to purchase additional right of way at 3515 Aggie Road for the purpose of the constructing and maintaining pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements. And that has twelve ninety one square feet, purchase price of $3,873 for $3 a square foot. Motion A motion to second forward to full council.

Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Anyone in council chambers or any staff? Okay, if not, please mark your vote. In resolution 25 or 86, we forwarded full cancel. Next item, resolution twenty five zero ninety two, resolution by the city council of Jonesboro, Arkansas authorizing the offer and acceptance to purchase additional right of way at 3509 Aggie Road for the purpose of the constructing and maintaining pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements.

That is ten sixty square feet purchase price of $3,180 which is $3 a square foot.

Second.

A motion seconded for council. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Anyone in attendance in council chambers or staff? Okay, if not, please mark your vote.

To take a call.

Okay. And that will forward it to full council. Must be at the first. Bear with me. Oh, there we go.

Okay. Next item. Resolution twenty five zero ninety six. Resolution of the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas to authorize the mayor and city clerk to accept a drainage easement from Patsy c Brown, the purpose of constructing and maintaining drainage improvements. Whereas the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas desires to accept the following described easement for the purpose of constructing and maintaining drainage improvements, legal description. So 15 foot easement along in parallel to the south rear property line. Legal description follows. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the city council for the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas that section one, the mayor and city clerk are by authorized by the city council for the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas to accept the easement described above.

Move to forward to full council. Second.

A motion second for full council. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Anyone in council chambers or staff in attendance? If not, please cast your vote. That measure passes will be forwarded to full council. Next item is pending items. I'm not aware of any other business by anyone on the committee. Next item, public comments. Any comments by anyone in the public in attendance on anything other than what was on today's agenda?

I think there were some questions about the trolley cars. Cars. I think that Lee Wells is here and I think there are some members of the public had inquired about the number and if any of you all have a question.

Okay, there's more of an update.

An update. Because we did vote on an item in regard to Jets Finance Committee meeting last Tuesday as well.

Yes, then that item will be up on full council today as well. So we do have the five trolleys in stock. We are still getting some preparations on those for our software upgrade, but we do have most all of the equipment on them to be able to make them revenue ready which is one of the items that we've been waiting on in order to get them out into service. So as you have seen, we have one trolley that is running on a regular route. We have the four routes.

I've seen it, yeah.

Yes, it looks really good.

Yeah, it looks great.

Yeah, and lots of people have asked, you know, how do I ride and we just tell them, you know, it's just like any other transit. So now that one specifically with the four routes is running on one route. We wanted to have some consistency with that, but also that route was a little more conducive to that trolley usage. So it is currently running on Route 17. Route 17 does travel over to Johnson and then also all the way over down Caraway to the Walmart on Highland.

That centralized area seem to be kind of a good fit for that trolley. So that's what we're utilizing it on now. We do have, like I said, everything that is needed for it to be revenue ready, but we will still be making some continuous progress on not only the trolleys, but also our regular fleet as well for this upgrade that we're in the process of with TripSpark to add some extra enhancements.

So the purpose of that one that I've seen that you're talking about that goes to Walmart, that's for like incoming students and international students perhaps and it goes from Carrot Way and then you said over to Walmart, is that correct?

That is correct, yes. It goes down Marion Barry over to Johnson, over to the campus, back over to Marion Barry to Caraway all the way out to the Walmart on Highland and then back to the transfer center. It actually that route does more loops than some of the others. It does some multiple loops. It's kind of complicated the way that one works, but that one has more visibility and it's more kind of in the center of town compared to the other routes. So that's kind of where we wanted to try to put it. Plus the navigation was just a little bit more fitting for that trolley as we get our drivers more accustomed to being in the driver's seat on those.

Lee, is that and we talked about this the other day, do you have any kind of estimated time when the software we have might make it available to purchase passes, monthly passes?

So we are currently working on that. The TripSpark project is more of an informative process, not really going to be for the pass process. We have made some slight tweaks to the way we are doing passes currently as we get ready to transition to a new program from the program we were using. The cost of that program was just starting to get extremely high for just repairs in order to run them and a replacement cost was just exponential. It just was not a very feasible thing for us to do.

We do currently have some information out now for industry individuals to bid on saying, hey, we'd like to have the opportunity to provide that package for you. So hopefully we should be seeing something on that.

We don't have a particular timeline right now on

how We long that may don't have a timeline yet because we're still in the RFP process. We haven't actually gotten a vendor yet. Until we get that vendor then we'll have to see what timeframe that vendor will have for the actual install of whatever is required to be installed and then connection to our system as it is. But we have the process moving forward to be able to define and pick that partnership.

Do you have any kind of update on the stops, the covers at the different stops?

I believe that closes tomorrow, Craig, is that correct? That shelter bid closes tomorrow, so we should have some more information moving forward on that.

Anybody else have anything for

Lee while he's up there? Chairman? Yes. I'm just thinking aloud, how much money do we really, and this is somewhat theoretical off the cuff, but how much money do we spend collecting money versus how much money we collect? I mean how much money are we going to spend to collect revenue versus how much money it really is?

That's one of the reasons why we have moved away from the system that we were using because realistically we were spending more money on keeping that system available for individuals than what we were actually collecting. Now of course revenue as we talked about before, we're not a revenue generator. We are federally funded, but that revenue stream is a nice way to be able to help with that cost that we have by switching over to the gravity feed, which is what we currently have in all of the vehicles. We have little to no cost involved in that. It's just the initial purchase process.

There's no upkeep. It's nothing on that is electronic. It is quite simply just a key lock and mechanical physically moving the cash box out. So that is a big, big plus. What we're looking at and with this RFP and what we're hoping to find is a reasonable cost for allowing those individuals that are maybe coming from out of town or those individuals that are only riding on occasion to be able to jump on and pay with a card or with their phone as opposed to having to try to find where we sell our passes in order to have that exact change cash available, because we can't give any change on the bus.

So it's just a matter of making that ease for them. Now just like I'm familiar and most of you are with any card payment system, there is a fee that's involved in that. It usually comes off of that whenever that fee is made. And that's what we're looking to get. But until we get that RFP back, we won't really know exactly what we're looking at. That's why we've got that reaching out to find out more information on it.

Any other questions? If not, thank you very much. Thank We look forward to having that come online. Okay, I guess next item is adjournment.

So moved.

I have motion and second. All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay.