Public Works Council Committee - Regular Meeting

It's 5 o'clock. We'll go ahead and call the Public Works Council Committee meeting to order. If you would, please mark your attendance when prompted to do so. We do have a quorum. Next item is approval of minutes. Minutes 26074 from the meeting on Tuesday, August 4, 2026. They weren't included in the packet. I'll give you a minute to look at them and be ready to entertain a motion.

DAVID BURRAGE- Ready to adopt.

Have a motion and a second to adopt. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Please mark your ballot. Any next item is new business. Ordinance is to be introduced. Ordinance 26029. An ordinance accepting the annexation of certain territory to the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas and for other purposes. Whereas petition was filed with the County Court of Craighead County, Arkansas pursuant to ACA 1440-609 for the annexation of certain territory into the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas. And whereas on July 24th, 2026, the County court of Craighead County, Arkansas found that the petition was signed by 100% of landowners and said territory. that said territory was depicted on an accurate map of said territory, filed with and made a part of the petition showing the property to be contiguous in adjoining the present corporate city limits of the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas. That petitioner had provided a letter from a licensed title agent verifying that petitioner is the sole owner of record of the relevant property that petitioner had provided a letter of verification from a certified surveyor verifying that the property is contiguous with the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, and that no enclaves will be created if the property is accepted by the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, that in all things pertaining thereto had been done in a matter prescribed by law, and said land and territory should be annexed to and made part of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, subject to the acceptance of same by the City Council of Jonesboro at proper time as provided by law, and whereas it is the desire of the City of Jonesboro that said territory be annexed, now therefore be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, section one, that the following described territory contiguous to the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas be, and the same hereby accepted as part of and annexed to and made part of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas. the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 10, and the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 11, all in Township 13, North Range 3 East, all in Craighead County, Arkansas. Also to include all adjoining and abutting rights of way of Craighead 431, Craighead 425, and Craighead 412 to the above described property. Section 2, that the following schedule of services shall be extended to the area of the City of Jonesboro after the date of annexation becomes final. One, police services. Two, fire protection services. Three, city sanitation. Four, city planning and code enforcement services. Five, street and storm water system maintenance on city streets and drainage easements. Six, city water and sewer. Seven, animal control and mosquito control. Section 3, that the above described territory shall be annexed to and made part of Ward 3 of the City of Jonesboro, and the same shall henceforth be part of said ward as fully as extending parts of said ward. Section 4, that the zoning ordinance of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Chapter 117, hereby is amended so that the land within the territory is zoned. as the RS1 classification. Section 5, that 30 days after the passage and publication or posting of this ordinance as authorized by law, the annexation shall be final and the property shall be within the corporate limits of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas. Section 6, that all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict. Section 7, that the provisions of this ordinance are hereby declared to be severable. And if any section, phrase, or provision shall be declared or held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect the remainder of the sections, phrases, or provisions. What's the pleasure of the committee?

Move to floor or to full council.

I have a question. DAVID BURRAGE.

We have to put it on. We have to put it on. You have a motion and a second to forward full council. OK, now.

Any comment? Well, go ahead and let you, Mr. Gramling. JAMES GRABLING. Jim Gramling with the Gramling Law Firm on behalf of the applicant. I have Terry Browning here of the Browning Family Trust. speak into the microphone yes sorry uh jim graham and graham law firm on behalf of the applicant um so this is a petition to annex 160 acres uh the south part of town this is uh just about a quarter of a mile from valley view there is a contract that's under review between the applicant and city water and light city water and light wants to put a lift station on the southwest corner of this property somewhere between one and three acres they're still trying to iron that out it's vacant land right now so if this gets annexed there's no immediate additional burden to the city my client doesn't have any current plans to do any sort of development so that's not that's not the reason that that i am here right now so I know from past experience that annexation is a tough sell. And the reason I think this case is different is because of the involvement of City Water and Light. They're gonna come out there, they're gonna put a lift station in there. I think my client thinks, and I agree, that it makes sense if they're gonna, we can't annex the southwest corner and create an enclave for the rest of it. So if City Water and Light is going to use part of this property as a lift station to service that part of town, which is where there's a lot of growth happening, it makes sense. But I understand that City Water and Light is going to go forward with a lift station, whether this gets annexed or not. So I think the issue here is, this property is eventually going to be developed okay like i said my folks don't have any current plans to do that but it's going to be developed and so the question is this is you know right next to valley view there's three paved streets on the uh the boundaries of the property with street frontage does the city want to have some control over what goes there this is you know The applicant has to get proper permits and go through MAPC and have city oversight as to what goes in there, or are we in the wild, wild west? You know, I understand that in 2025, our legislature repealed the extraterritorial jurisdiction provision, so now The ability of Jonesboro to control land use stops at the boundary of our city limits. So, you know, if this is not approved, somebody can come in there and do whatever they want. I mean, God forbid somebody put a bunch of multifamily in there. The city just doesn't have any control. And so I understand that there is resistance to multifamily or to annexation, excuse me. But I think the question that you have to ask yourself here is, do we want something that is right next to Valley View, looks like it's in Jonesboro already, that we have no control over what goes there, or do we want to try to find the best possible solution given what we have and the new law in the state of Arkansas and exercise some control over this property. So I think that's the argument. And, you know, I understand, again, that there may be some resistance. But anyway.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask Counselor a few questions myself.

Yes, sir. Go right ahead.

Mr. Grambling, as you remember, I was the – vocal about the opposition of your last annexation. But to your credit, you did have a legitimate point on the last one. It was a one lot owned by a man and a woman. It was surrounded by city. It was more or less kind of an abnormality there, only divided off by the road. And so there was an argument to be made on that one. When I looked at this one today, if your annexation succeeds, it'll be surrounded on three sides by county. Your argument of over control would pertain to really any property that borders our city. So I mean, saying that we ought to annex 160 acres so that we can have control on it, and there's I'm going to take a guess, there's probably 100 to 200,000 acres that border us around the 98 mile perimeter. I don't think that's a legitimate concern. City Water and Light can build a lift station wherever they choose. They can buy property from your client if they needed to, or they could buy property inside the city limits. I haven't seen any evidence that shows that we need or have a shortage of developable property. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Less than half the property in the city of Jonesboro is developed. And my argument is the same this time as it was last time, except it's multiplied by 160 times. Your last client had an acre lot with a single family house. Now you're 160 acres. and we're gonna be responsible. And it's actually at the almost, there may be something farther south than that, but that's at the extreme south end of Jonesboro that we will have to offer police and fire protection and sanitation and upkeep on the roads. And until there's a shortage or a need for developable property inside the city limits, I just can't see expanding into an area I would be much more likely if it was the parcel up to the left that was bordered with three sides to close up a gap and streamline the city limits, but I just can't see it here on this lot.

Sure, and I understand, and those are reasonable concerns. I would say two things. First of all, as I said, there's no current plans to develop, so there's gonna be zero immediate burden on the city.

But we both know as soon as it's annexed, it'll... become much more marketable and somebody will buy that and I'm sure it'll be developed like the adjoining property into single family homes there on the

Well, as a matter of fact, I don't know that. I've had a developer tell me that it might be more.

Regardless what it's eventually developed as, we would still be responsible for providing basic city services to it.

OK. So my point was only that there is no immediate burden on the city. I've been told by at least one developer that it might be more marketable if it's not in the city so there's no immediate burden but the second thing is i think what you're getting to is sort of the precedential value of this and you may recall when i was up here for the turners uh three years ago you said if we do this this is going to open the floodgates how are we going to say no to the next one and as far as i know there have been zero annexation petitions since then

I think you're correct on that.

So there in fact was no flood dates. All I can control is the application that I've submitted with my client. I don't know who wants to be annexed. There's a thousand different considerations that a person wishing to potentially develop property might have in mind. in considering whether or not to go for annexation, one of which being the reluctance of city council to do that. But I would say, as far as precedent's concerned, we've seen in the past that annexing one has not opened the floodgates for tens of applications to follow.

Well, now we're going from one lot to 160 acres. And eventually, if I was the owner of that other piece right there, I would be straight over to your office wanting to annex it too. And I would use this current proposal as my justification to close up that gap.

Well, if it matters, I'll agree not to take that case.

Thank you. That's all.

Any other questions of Mr. Grambling while he's at the podium?

Uh, yeah, sure. Uh, I know you say there's no plans to develop it now. Then why bring it into the city? What's the point?

Well, I, I think they felt like the precipitating factor was the involvement of city water in line, right?

Which they can build it regardless. It doesn't have to be in the city, right?

No, that's right. But I think that my clients just felt like it makes sense at this point for this to be annexed into the city.

And I can understand them wanting to be brought in the city. Uh, my concern, and I've stated this in the past from a previous position from the emergency services, it's just one more straw on the camel's back. I'm very much opposed to trying to annex in more land until we can take care of the issues that we have now. We have some very valid concerns where we have weaknesses in the current city and I don't want to see about the potential to extend that to another place. So that's my main concern is we need to take care of what we have first.

Certainly, and I understand that. I guess I would just offer that I've got a little bit of an education today doing some research on the 2025 law that repealed the extraterritorial jurisdiction. And there's been a lot of controversy about that, a lot of upset folks about what's going up next to them. And there's nothing anybody can do because it's the wild, wild west. DAVID BURRAGE. And I understand.

Outside the city is not our control. But that argument is we can't annex, then we need to take this land, then we need to take the one next to it and the one next to it, then we just annex the whole county. We can't do that.

No, I understand. And, again, I would just say that you only have this application in front of you. We did this three years ago when, you know, there was area around there that wasn't annexed and you didn't see a flood of applicants after that. So I just am not willing to concede that if you do this, everybody else is going to immediately start filing for annexation. Any other questions? Mr. Grambling, while he's at the podium.

Chairman, I would just say I was looking at Fayetteville and Arkadelphia and a couple other cities, and they've got kind of an ordinance that applies to this and an ordinance that doesn't, Sometimes they have ordinances that apply to a development inside the city limits and they require green space. Obviously, that's not what we're talking about here. There's other cities that say, hey, if you want to be annexed, you're going to have to give us some park space. So I think as we look at annexations in the future, I know Councilman Moore, the last time, a couple years ago, he kind of posed the question, what's in it for the city, which was a very, very good question in the instance of Mr. Turner. And I think that on future annexations, I think that is the question, what's in it for the city? So I think for me on considering future annexations, I would want to see somebody doing something for the city, like giving us some land for parks or police or fire or whatever it was the city deemed was important.

Thank you. I would like to add, well, I agree with Councilman Moore. We've been here quite a few years together and watched a lot of this. I think the last major thing we had wasn't annexation. Yours was justified, the last one. I concurred with that, voted for it, made sense. But we actually de-annexed 40 acres and would probably be agreeable to de-annex some more. We've got 82 and a half square miles. This is the second largest city by land size to Little Rock. It does place an additional burden on our resources which are stressed thin as it is. It's just not a good time to do it and I know there is a study underway for impact fees and this would be I don't think we ought to annex another square foot until we have something in place on impact fees that would affect what the city costs would be for development of property. And I do, like, I understand why somebody, if it was my property, I'd want it to be in the city because it would at least triple in value immediately because it was in the city and RS1 available for city utilities and city sewer. It makes it a lot more valuable. And I don't blame them if it was mine. I'd be trying to get it in. But there is no way in good conscience I could look another citizen in the eye and vote to bring a piece of property that size in the city when, as he just mentioned, we're already stretched thin. It's hard to justify taking in more when we actually have deficiencies in areas we need to be working on now. So that's all I had to add. But does anybody else on the committee have anything to say? Any other proponents or any comments from anyone in the audience? Yes, sir. Please come forward, state your name and address for the record, please, sir.

All right, I am Terry Browning. I'm here in support of my family and the trust. I'm from, my address is Jonesboro by Westside School. I wanna tell you just a little bit about the farm, and when somebody stands up here and says, well, there's no immediate plan to develop this, that's true, and you say, I can't believe that. So let me see if I can convince you of that. All right, let me tell you a little bit about the farm first. It has a very interesting history, and I'll be brief. but 80 acres of this farm was actually homesteaded. This is a plaque here by Ulysses S. Grant where he signed the homestead. So this land has been in my mother's family for many, many years, since 1800s. The Lamberson family actually owned well over 1,000 acres. I've heard up to 3,000 acres at one time. They lost all of it, but this $160,000 during the Depression, couldn't pay the taxes. Think how different my life would have been if we could have kept that 3,000 acres or whatever it was, right? Okay, so anyway, my granddad, he stepped up at the age of 16 and started farming so that he could pay the taxes on his property, and that's the way we have it now. Now, my mom and dad, I never thought they'd possibly sell this property, okay? But what has happened is, you know, it's a farm, okay? And it's always been a rice, soybean rotation farm. And what has happened is the groundwater is there, the aquifer is there, but the formation will not release the water sufficient to run a rice well. If you try to run a rice well over about a thousand gallon per minute, it'll surge. All right, so it's just a matter of time until this is not a farm because we can't irrigate it. And so we spent, this is our fourth well, and they're about $35,000 a piece, and that's more rent than the farm brings in every time we put a well down. And so I went to my parents, and we were discussing it, and I said, you know, you can't fight progress. We've always talked about, one of these days, this'll be housing development, there'll be something in this property, this won't be a farm, you know. It's only a quarter mile from Valley View Schools, you know, just across the field. And matter of fact, on that point, it's kind of interesting because before they built Valley View School as their own Yarborough property, they came to us and asked to use this property for Valley View School. If we'd said yes then, that's where Valley View School would have been, OK? So anyway, so it's kind of funny. And another point here I can make is I actually have no financial gain if this sells or not or whatever, because this is will to my sister. So it's not mine anyway. I'm just here in support of my mom and dad. My dad's 91. My mother's 89. My dad's lost his eyesight. My mom's in a wheelchair. My dad said, I want to take care of this while I'm alive, you know, for the kids. And so anyway, there actually is not any future, I'll say future, that's not correct, there's not any immediate plans to sell this or do whatever with it. And actually it's kind of funny because I understand more after working with Mr. Grambling, of course, about how this works and annexation and the law, but my parents understand less. they actually thought they'd be doing y'all a favor to offer the city the land. You see what I'm saying? They wouldn't know. And so my dad was actually proud of this, and he wanted me to come, like I said, represent them, because he thought he was doing y'all a favor to offer this to the city. Because most people, well, if you go talk to Doyle Yarbrough, or Pete, whatever you want to call him, He didn't want his land annexed because, and that's the one you're talking about over here, which he's given most of it to Ken and Susie now, and because he didn't want to pay more taxes. So he's all against annexation. So anyway, that's about all I've got to say, but what he was telling you is actually true. I know it's hard to believe at the time, but there's actually no immediate plans to do anything with it. But I think it's inevitable it's gonna be developed. I mean, there's a payroll on all three sides, it joins the city, you heard all the attributes. And it's just inevitable, it's gonna happen. And I would think, when City of Winter Light puts the facility down in the southwest corner, I would think they'd wanna supply their own power. I wouldn't think they'd want to pay Craig Electric to power their facility, surely. I would think they would want to provide their own power. So I would think that's a big factor also. But anyway, thank you.

DAVID BURRAGE. Thank you, Mr. Browning. I would believe that what you're saying is true. It probably isn't a plan to develop it, because there's well over 400 available residential lots already in the area. that are sitting there ready to be developed. So it will be a while before anything will be absorbed. However, um, nothing keeps anybody from developing it. Now they just have to break it off and bigger lot that would support whatever the, uh, uh, uh, health department required for, you know, for it to park adequately. So it could still be developed, but it would be a lot slower absorption rate. But, um, And I was on the school board of Valley View for 10 years and right now they're just up to their eyeballs. I don't think they need a mass influx of anybody right now. I'm sure they'll deal with it, we always did, but I don't think they're looking for any additional development right now either. But in CWL, I'm on the board of directors of Seawater Light and they will put a They will put a lift station there. They've been talking about that for several years, regardless of whether they'll have the property to put it on. And that's all I have to say. Anybody else on the committee have anything to say? Anybody else in the public? We have a motion and a second on the table. Please mark your ballot when prompted. and does not carry. The next item of resolution to be introduced is resolution 26-105, a resolution to execute a traffic control device agreement to maintain control devices. Whereas the city of Jonesboro has received an Arkansas Department of Transportation traffic control device agreement, and whereas this traffic control device agreement is for the purpose of modifying traffic signals on Highway 91 at the intersections of Marionbury Parkway, Carraway Road installing a pedestrian hybrid beacon on highway 91 at Melrose Street and installing an RRFB on highway 91 at Dean Street whereas the city of Jonesboro believes said agreement is for the use and benefit of the city of Jonesboro and all its residents and whereas it is in the best interest of the city of Jonesboro that the City Council authorizes the execution of this agreement Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council for the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, that Section 1, this traffic control device agreement, is for the purpose of modifying traffic signals on Highway 91 at the intersection of Marionberry Parkway and Carraway Road, installing a pedestrian hybrid beacon on Highway 91 at Melrose Street, and installing an RRFB on Highway 91 at Dean Street. Section 2, that this device agreement is for the best interest of the residents of the city of Jonesboro. Section 3, the mayor and city clerk are hereby authorized to execute said traffic control device agreement.

I move to recommend the full council. Second.

I have a motion and second to recommend full council. Any comments or questions by anyone on the committee? Any comments or questions by anyone in the audience? Any staff? OK, if not, we have a motion and a second. Please cast your ballot. And that will be forwarded to full council. Next item is pending items. I know of none. Other business? Anyone on the committee have any other business before the committee? Public comments? Anyone in the public have any comments on anything that was not on today's agenda? If not, next item is adjournment.

So moved. Second.

Motion and second to adjourn. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Meeting adjourned. Thank you.