Board of Directors - Regular Meeting

Jack. Hey. Jack. J. N. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey. Jack feel jingle. Hey, hey, hey.

Heat. Heat. Good afternoon. I want to welcome everyone to the city of Little Rock Board of Directors special call meeting. Madam clerk, if you would please call the role.

Director Miller. Director Richardson. Director Web here. Director Peek here. Director Hines. Director Lewis here. Dire. Director Compirus. Director Adcock present. Director who am I? Director Phillips present. And Vice Mayor Wyrick present. Mayor Scott

present. We'll now have a brief invocation from city director Phillips. Uh thank you mayor and thank you uh for those attending and those watching online if we take a moment. Um Lord, we recognize you and ask you to continue to give us guidance and direction as we u take seriously the responsibility of making decisions on behalf of the city. Continue to give us the wisdom, the guidance to do what's best for the city of Little Rock. It's in Jesus name that I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Will you please stand for the pledge of allegiance? 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.

Madame clerk, we have uh three grouped items. if you would please. Uh first reading.

Oh, presentation on one second. Actually, um what we'll do is I'll see what we'll do. We won't wait to the agenda. Um we will now have uh Lisa Academy come before us please you guys I'll talk to you. can join. Whoever wants to join. Members of city board of directors. Uh today we want to take this time to recognize uh Lisa West Academy Middle School uh and their science team with their Olympiad team uh for earning first place at the Arkansas Science Olympiad and qualifying for the National Science Olympiad to be held uh in Los Angeles, California on May 26, May 2026. Uh we want to commend their exceptional

work and scientific knowledge and commitment to the excellence. I'm just recently was able to be a part of their Arkansas STEM Festival. It was really a great time to see all the great work they're doing. We truly have some remarkable folks at Lisa West Academy. Let's give them all a round of applause. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Uh good evening everyone. Thank you so much for this opportunity. And then as you know Liza Academy most diverse school district we have more than 50 language spoken at their home our families. And then also our science team they're ready. They're going to represent our cancer and then we will also there is another team here you know we have a lot of uh achievement. Thank you so much for this opportunity again my teacher Miss Pash, Mr. Hartell and my science team of course and then my parents always there supporting us. I really appreciate uh Mayor Scott for your support and then your team. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Phillips. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations you all. Thank you. Congratulations. All right. Good see it again. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh members of city board, we'll be uh doing a proclamation for donate uh donate life month. Are any of the members here for donate life month? Yes. If you guys come, Mr. Brandon, are you going to join us? I know you know Stranger is the chairman of Sister Cities Commission. And this is also your organization, too. Yes, this is where I work. This is my day job. the day job, not your sister city's job. We appreciate that. We got it.

All right. Whereas every year, National Donate Life observes donate life month to amplify the importance of registering as an organ and tissue donor and encourage the public to wear blue and green, which I have on today uh to raise awareness. And whereas more than 100,000 Americans, including nearly 400 in the state of Arkansas, are currently on the national transplant waiting list. And whereas another person is added to the waiting list every 8 minutes and on average 16 people die every day because the organs they need are not donated in time. Whereas we can all do our part to save lives by educating and encouraging our peers and loved ones to register as an organ and tissue donor. And whereas the city of Little Rock supports National Donate Donate Life and Southern Legacy of Life and its efforts to bring life to people in need of life-saving organ and tissue transplants. And whereas we hold those who have saved lives through the gift of donation in the highest regard and are grateful for their selflessness. Now therefore, I, Frank Scott, Junior, mayor of the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, do hereby proclaim April 2026 donate life month.

Thank you, Mayor Scott, and the board of directors. I'm Mark Tudtor. I'm the CEO of Southern Legacy of Life. Uh on behalf of the 300 people in the state of Arkansas waiting for a transplant, I'd like to thank you for just recognizing this day because we see people die every day waiting for a transplant and this is a very important topic and there's been a lot of publicity about this. So every time that we have a chance to talk about a good story about donation and get the word out there on on how our organization saves lives and and builds legacies for our donor families, we appreciate the support and taking time out of your day today to talk about it. So thank you very much and this means a lot to our organization. Thank you. So

thank you All right, Madam Clerk, if you would please read uh the grouped items.

An ordinance to amend L Rock, Arkansas, Rev Code section 17.5-24, 1988 to add a subsection D to set the hours of juvenile curfew from 10 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. as the date of passage of this ordinance to and until September 8, 2026 for 7 days a week to declared emergency and for other purposes. An ordinance to amend and confirm section one of the Little Rock, Arkansas ordinance number 22,603, April 29th, 2025 concerning franchise fees to be paid to the city of Little Rock, Arkansas by Central Arkansas Water and for other purposes an ordinance to amend and confirm section one of the Little Rock, Arkansas ordinance number 22,604, April 29th, 2025 concerning franchise fees to be taid to the city of Little Rock, Arkansas by the Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority and for other purposes. First reading.

Second. There's a mo There's a motion and second. All those in favor, please say I. I. Those oppos say nay. I have it. Second reading.

An ordinance to amend Little Rock, Arkansas Rev. Code section 17.5-24 1988 to add a subsection D to set the hours of a juvenile curfew from 10 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. as the date of passage of this ordinance to and until September 8th, 2026 for 7 days a week to declare an emergency. And for other purposes, an ordinance to amend and confirm section one of the Little Rock, Arkansas ordinance number 22,63 April 29th, 2025 concerning franchise fees to be paid to the city of Little Rock, Arkansas by Central Arkansas Water and for other purposes. An ordinance to amend and confirm section one of the Little Rock, Arkansas ordinance number 22,604, April 29th, 2025 concerning franchise fees to be paid to the city of Little Rock, Arkansas by the Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority and for other purposes. Second reading.

We suspend the rules and place on third and final reading. Second. There's a motion to second. All those in favor, please say I. I. Say n. One. Eyes have it. No. On to

eyes have it. Third reading. An ordinance to amend Little Rock, Arkansas, Rev Code section 17.5-24, 1988 to add a subsection D to set the hours of a juvenile curfew from 10 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. as the date of passage of this ordinance to and until September 8th, 2026 for 7 days a week to declare an emergency and further purposes. An ordinance to amend and confirm section one of Little Rock Arkansas ordinance number 22,63 April 29th 2025 concerning franchise fees to be paid to the city of Little Rock Arkansas by Central Arkansas Water and other purposes. An ordinance to amend and confirm section one of the Little Rock Arkansas ordinance number 22,604 April 29th 2025 concerning franchise fees to be paid to the city of Little Rock Arkansas by the Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority and for other purposes third and final reading.

Members of board we've had three readings. Uh, Director Wrick.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, in my research for franchise fees, I brought up last week that we had two ordinances that were approved in 2025 that had the 6.9 for water and the five for sewer. So, when I found out these were coming up again tonight to correct that to 10%, I found a resolution uh dated April 29th, 2025 and it was aou to Willow Ben Capital LLC and it shows that we were going to not charge any uh water uh water franchise fees or sewer franchise fees. And that was a resolution 16672. Then I found two more resolutions which were the ones that I related to last week where it talks about for the water reclamation that um they were going to be charged 5% above 750,000 gallons per day. And for um Central Arkansas Water, they're going to be charged 6.9% above 1 MGD uh on an annual average. So, I'm thinking that we're trying to fix those two from uh April of last year, but when I look at the new ordinances, they do not address the limits for the usage. So, I'm confused as to what these two ordinances are trying to fix. And I guess Mr. Carpenter can help me out with that.

Mayor, Mr. Carpenter.

Okay. Um, thank you, Director Wrick. And first off, I would never say you're confused about anything. So, I want to tell you that there was a the massive um there was potentially a massive entity that wanted to come to Little Rock that was going to be able to use large amounts of water and use our sewer and was also going to uh make certain amounts payable to the city that were substantial. The ordinance that was passed or the two ordinances, one for water and one for sewer and 225, which I noted last week was my fault as to that because I hadn't dived deep enough into what we had done with the rates and when we did them at the time, but that that was basically an ordinance that says this is what we've done and it says you don't get charged these if there is an agreement between the city and the entity that was to be created. uh that includes an annual usage above certain amounts. It's 750,000 gallons for

sewage and 1 something million I think it's 05 million for water that has not happened. Uh so what you found is the additional one is for a development that has not occurred. It was the name I was given for the development at the time that I thought might occur. And um uh and I need to stop there because I don't know if if we're getting ready to get somebody that's going to have that much or not. But what it essentially does is allows the city to wave its franchise fee if it can come to agreement with the entity for their usage. The 10% as I've noted before and as noted in these two ordinances was increased at the December 21, 2007 meeting and began collection on and after January 1, 2008 and and I pointed out last week that uh there were two citizens that uh particularly spoke about this issue and there was a fairly involved discussion by the board of directors uh with some people noting that they did not agree with the increase in the franchise fees. So it was all there uh in you know the public record that the intent was made to send it to that and the amounts were included within the budget revenue amounts. The two resolutions that were done last week were to deal with uh two resolutions that dealt with each of these so that we've got a consistency as to what we've done and when. And these two ordinances uh hopefully would have been granted in entered last week, but I got word that Director Peek wasn't going to be here. I got confirmation from her she would be here after the meeting started because it basically said, "See, I'm here." But

I didn't think we were going to have eight votes to go to a second reading or third reading. And then I've been trying to make sure that all of the ordinance names and and numbers and all that are correct. And that's why you've got the ordinances today. You'll notice that there's a section in this ordinance that says among other things, the purpose of this ordinance is to make it clear for any of our ordinances or resolutions that may have some other figure that the 10% figure has been the one in effect by agreements and by the budget ordinance of 2008.

Okay. So my my question to you is again the ordinances that you're trying to correct do not have any limitations on them in the new ordinances but they relate to the original ordinances. So why do these if we're just trying to correct the 10% why do we not have the demands in these two ordinances for the usage? These two ordinances deal with the authority we've given to a third party to avoid franchise fees by entering into a different agreement with the city. It's a large company that's going to meet those two usages. And it's it's not uncommon for in fact I think water and sewer and electric I don't know about the telephone company uh but water and sewer and electric do give certain types of discounts for large users. The two amounts that were set by the city for these uh were set after consultation with the two utilities. And we wanted to make sure it was a genuinely significant additional amount so that a uh working out a fee arrangement and working out a discount would be in the best interest of everyone in order to bring the jobs and in order to make sure the city was not out of any revenue.

Okay. So theou that was a resolution that was done in April of 2025 does not apply to these other two ordinances. Theou was about something we thought would happen that never did happen. So if this is to occur in the future then these two ordinances will say to such an entity this is what they were this is what we've got to agree agree with and here's its history. Okay. Okay. So, we don't have aou for the new the two new ordinances. No, we don't. Nobody's taken us up on the deal yet.

Okay. Okay. Um, so this does not apply to any particular business entity at all. Not at this point. It No, nobody's taking advantage of it. I guess that it it applies to all businesses once they reach the trigger. Nobody's reached the trigger. That's what I'm trying to And what is the trigger? It's 750,000 gallons of sewage and 1.05 million. But it doesn't say it in the ordinance. I thought that it did. It says in section one of the ordinance.

Well, am I looking at um the wrong ones? 22604 and 22 603. No, I need to be looking at Yeah. Is that the new ones 22 22603 and 22604?

Yeah. the the new one in section one towards the end on page two starting at line six uh or five shall not include revenues from any user with an installed and build meter with discharge exceeding 750,000 gallons per day on an annual average provided the city has contractually accepted an alternative consideration for the Little Rock Water Reclamation Authorities use the rightway for that user and then the same language is found uh on page two of the other ordinance. Um Oh, I see it on I see it on the central Arkansas water one.

Yeah. And it exceeds one million gallons per day. I guess that's what MGD means. on an annual average provided the city I see that that's that's the language that tells a vendor that wants to come to Little Rock if you want to avoid the franchise fees and you're at this level you can do so but you're going to have to negotiate a different contract with us. Okay. So at this time I want to ask you this one more time just to make sure these two ordinances do not apply to any active contract that we have with an business corporation LLC entity in the city.

No one's taking advantage of it. Right. What does that mean take advantage? That means I don't know what various industries use, but if one of the industries found themselves doing 750,000 gallons of sewage or 1 million gallons per day of water, they could take advantage of this. This is not written for one company. It's written for one level of user, which is a pretty massive user. We had one in mind at the time. That one didn't go forward. But at any time anybody meets those standards, they are entitled to avoid the franchise fees by working out a different agreement with the city. Okay.

Well, you see my concern because we have aou and then we have two ordinances that validate the 1 MGD and the 750 and then we're coming in and we're making it 10%. That was my my concern that we had a real live customer out there that was going to utilize these fees and we were raising them but yet we weren't letting them know. Exactly. And and that's not the case. Theou has not gone forward and any things that I've heard about it's going to have to require newou at the time we decide to go forward. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Good questions.

Director Miller. Thank you, mayor. Uh, my questions deal with um with ordinance one. Uh, just first an observation. I think this synopsis that's under ordinance one is not right. Uh, so maybe we can get that corrected before next week. Um, so and wanted to make sure I was reading that right. And then of course, let me say I'm I'm supportive of the ordinance, but I have a question and I know how much uh it'll be it'll be corrected today, not next week. Oh, okay. We'll get it corrected. I see what you say. Did I misspel synopsis?

Yeah. No, we'll we'll come to you. Yes. Oh, the synopsis. Yeah. And um my question and I know how much Chief Dyer likes speaking before us. So um I just like looking at you but you know in the ordinance we talk about the success of the curfew that we had last summer. Yes sir.

How do we measure success? Can do you have any kind of numbers? I mean we say it was successful. So what what are we saying success looks like?

Well, uh first and foremost, uh good afternoon to you all. Um, when we look at success, we look at the crime rate in it in in its totality because we know that a lot of times when we have uh a a group of people that gather at any point in time, we could have a very serious incident that occur from that gathering if the wrong thing happens. And the wrong thing could be the wrong person showing up. Somebody that's from another city come in that they've had a beef with for however long. Now we have a huge group of people, one person with a weapon that begins to fire that weapon and we may have uh some injuries that uh people succumb to. So when we were looking at all of our comparisons of part one offenses, let's just speak about homicides. This time last year, uh we had or 20 homicides at this point last year. This year we have four. Okay, so that's a 80% decrease. Well, we have five. We just had another one. So, we we have five compared to 20. We also look at the number of juvenile citations that may or may not have to be written, the number of calls that are generated from those from those gatherings. There's just a huge amount of things that we look at where we come up with the times, the dates that we believe we need to put other things in place to deal with some of the things that we know for a fact historically are coming. So that those are some of the things that we look at. Burglaries, B&Es, it's just a huge amount of things. Director. Okay. And so when we talk about a citation, I guess let me just think out loud here. These juveniles certainly I think a lot of concern is we don't want something that's going to stick with them for the rest of their lives.

Correct. So when they get a citation, they can come before the juvenile court and they have flexibility to I guess judges have flexibility to make something stay on the record or go away.

More than likely some of the things that are being done out here um that we may or may not have to write a citation for is not going to follow them into their adulthood. It's just it's those things that on the more serious end that and that's not a citation. That's going to jail. Um so when I say citations, you really have to do something for us to write you a citation. If we get there and we tell you to go on about your business, break up, do whatever and you do that, then we're going to allow you to go about your business. If we get there and we ask you to break it up and you stand there and act as if you didn't hear us, we're not going to ask you 15 times. So with this ordinance being in place, we have something else that we can stand on to make sure that all the parents as well as the children understand that your child will be in violation of an ordinance uh if they are out beyond these hours. So it's just something to help us to help us make sure that we don't have the type of crime that we don't need in this city to occur. So we're not out. Please make sure that this is understood. We are not here to go out here and write a million citations even though we we know we could. That is not what this is about. This is about making sure that people do not become victims of crimes. Those that are just in the area, those that are just walking through, those that are visiting the city, those that are trying to enjoy all the beautiful things that this city has to offer. you go out at the wrong time um and get into the wrong groups, you may get something that you were not asking for nor that you deserve. So that's what all of this is about.

Okay. And certainly when you get a citation, that means you have to go you have a court appearance. You do. It's even more than that for a juvenile though. I mean, one of the reasons if if I may.

Sure. One of the reasons this came up last year is we were having a tremendous amount of officer time being taken because you don't just if you're going to take a juvenile into custody. You don't just take them into custody, you've got to take them to the juvenile facility, they've got to be met with the facilitator. The officer basically has to stay there until it's been taken over. One more reason why if we say you're not supposed to be out of here, go home. It usually works. The point you make about our experience last year, in last year's ordinance, it had a a section in it that this one does also about, you know, looking at the specific records and how this has worked in areas to see if we can make this a permanent addition to the ordinance for summertime months. We had discussions at the end of last year and essentially the assessions were particularly in the river market area. This ordinance was very successful in that we cut down on the problems of of kids getting together and and and congregating and creating problems and also times taking lawyers officers away from other things. The provision is in there again with the hope that sometime in September or October the data people at UA at at the police department can put together a two-year picture of what this has been able to accomplish for us. Compare it to 24 and previously and then we can say this will be an ongoing thing from this day forward and and not make it a bring it up once a year change. You might remember that one of the most tragic things that's happened at the river market where a group of kids were together and the officers are trying to get them to disperse and and some fool pulled a gun and shot it. And so the

officers going to see what that is. Another person says, and I'm using his story, not the what we what the officer saw, but his story was he saw the gun, he picked it up to take it away safely. Well, the officer told him to put it down. He ended up pointing it at the officer and he got shot and he was very seriously injured. It wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been hanging around. And this is to try to be able to get that it wouldn't have happened in place.

Okay. So, I'm certainly supportive, but I I want to make sure we we get all this data and that we have something to compare it to. So we got data from last year. I want to make sure that we then can compare this on ongoing basis because I think some in the public certainly support it. But when we say we want to have success, I want to be able to point to some data that we have to show how successful this has been. Um, I've certainly, you know, support the judgment of the LRPD and the chief and saying they need this tool in the tool belt. Uh, but certainly collection of data, I want to make sure that maybe at the end of uh, mayor, maybe the end of the curfew, we have data and we can get a report that shows how this has been, how these numbers have worked.

Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem, sir. I know he wasn't speaking to me mayor. I'm not calling myself the mayor cuz I know he said mayor. But that should not be an issue for us to do something do some comparables if that's what you're asking for. Yes. Yeah, that's what I'm asking for. Yes, sir. We should be able to do that. Okay. Thank Thank you, Mayor. That's all I have.

Thank you, Chief Dyer. Uh we'll now go to uh Director Compirus, then Director Phillips. Chief, um, if memory serves me correctly, and since I'm the second oldest person here, last year before we did the site, before we put in the curfew, we had a large number of citations we had. And after the curfew, we had one. Is that correct? I cannot speak to that, sir, but I know that the numbers did drop precipitously.

Yes, sir. And I mean I I like I'm I'm in the business of looking statistics, but just the officer involvement, what happened down there that the young people learned that being downtown in an entertainment district after a period of time when they were underage was not the right thing to do. When I talked to Chief Helton, I think he told me there was one citation after we publicized that. And to me it's a issue for the safety of not only the young people but the other people that are in in this area. So I think it I appreciate what you and Tom were saying about bringing back saticious and what Virgil wants. But if you just look at the success of last year, the number of incidents we had once y'all did it went down appreciably. So thank you. And I and I'd also like to add I I think we really need to take into account the amount of people, young people that are being influenced by those that are a little bit older. And that's what we don't want to get get at get into whether it be social media or whatever the case may be. There are things that keep popping up every day there's something new. And what happens is that's brought into our communities. Um and we don't need that stuff to go from social media into our communities. And then we have to we have to act uh we have to deal with the the bad side of that because most of the time it's going to be something bad that comes from these things. I've been doing this a very long time. I've been dealing with juveniles in the summer most of my career and I know what's going to happen tomorrow uh if history repeats itself and normally that happens. Thank you,

Director Phillips. Um, thank thank you, Mayor. Thank you, uh, Chief Dyer. Just want to get clarity on a few things and state publicly. I'm I'm supportive of this. I know we got sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Yes, sir. As they say, and this is one of the things that we got to do, but I just want to add some clarity uh hopefully for our constituents so they can understand a few things. One, the citations that are issued are for the minors or for the parent. It's for the minors, but the parents have to be a part of it. They will be held accountable if the minors do not uh show up for court or the court dates or whatever the case may be. Okay?

Because we don't just issue citations to minors. A parent has to a parent has to show up to pick that minor up and sign for that minor and that citation. Okay, understood. Then number two, as it relates to the uh River Market area, kind of downtown in general, um is the police department's plan, are we going to increase presence on the weekends or at night time? Like how how do we practically enforce and make sure we're get the same type of success we had last year? Just as we have in the past, director, um we have a unit of personnel that we're going to utilize after school has ended. We we also have some you'll see a larger footprint prior to school ending, but as school ends and we get through graduations and things like that, we have a whole unit of uh officers. And it's not just the River Market area. It's anywhere that any juveniles uh we find juveniles that are congregating in large numbers.

And then thirdly, uh for you, chief, um I I think you kind of mentioned this that there's some discretion involved. You can kind of give people a warning. Hopefully everybody listen to you move on. Then obviously if they're not heeding the warning, then you got to do again do what you got to do for uh uh law enforcement uh capabilities. But in that discretion, I'm just giving an example, you know. 17-year-old's leaving work at 10:30 from Pizza Hut and you see the 17-year-old in that example, they're leaving work going home probably not getting a citation. Will not get a citation. Okay.

If that if that 17year-old uniform, whatever, can prove that they just left work, then I mean, we're human beings. We know people got to get out get out there and grind a little bit. That's not going to happen. And that's why I just want to be clear to some of the people reached out to me that this is not we're not losing common sense in in enforcing this curfew as it relates to the things that happen every day in people life that may occur after 10 p.m. But if you're violating in a way that looks like uh from your police experience that hey we need to enforce this then that's where the discretion comes in at. Correct. That is correct. But let me let's let me be clear with this too sir. Um, it's not going to always be a warning the first time.

I'm not saying it should be, right? It's it's it depends on what's going on, the incident that's occurring, the reason we were called, the attitude of those that are involved in all of this, and and if it's the type of crime that we can't overlook, then we can't do it. But if it if it is something where someone is just lording and whatnot and we ask you to move on and you get in your car and you go home, uh then it is what it is. Now, if we go to the next spot and I just ask you to go home, you you're going to get a citation. I

I understand that. Yes, sir. That that makes sense to me. Then last thing, this is kind of addressed to the mayor and the city manager. Um, I've received calls and text messages about things that other cities are doing to try to facilitate good activities for our youth in the summertime. Obviously, people um I mean, I remember being 16, not that long ago. And you still want to do things. You still want to be with your friends and still want to have fun. So, I'm going uh request that city manager and mayor um and community program staff uh kind of put their heads together to try to figure out ways that the city can facilitate um safe and fun activities. I know other cities across the country are dealing with the same problem with teenagers lording and they're using a two-prong approach. Hey, we got to enforce the law, but we can also understand the reality and that there there should be space for quote unquote kids to be kids. And if we can work with our community programs, I know our school intervention team and all those folks probably have great ideas. I would encourage us to do that as well.

And Director Phillips, thank you for that. Uh I do want to share uh in light of uh one, we the city of Little Rock always has summer programming. In light of the actions that took place in 20 last year, we significantly increased that summer programming. Um, and the community programs, parks, um, office administration and PD literally have been meeting through uh, I think today was the fourth meeting. They've been meeting all year in preparation uh, for this summer and plan to have a summer roll out. And quite frankly, we were already planning to uh reinstate the curfew on the last day of school. Uh but in light of just seeing also what's going on around the country, uh this is nothing new to Little Rock. Um unfortunately, some some really interesting things happen in Washington DC the last couple of weeks and Atlanta and some other areas. It's just some societal things that are happening with these kind of linkups. Uh long story short, because we had a smaller version of what we've seen in some other cities our size and larger, that's the reason why we decided to start what we already had planned for the last day of school for right now. uh which will include the balancing act of um the hundreds of jobs we'll give for some youth employment opportunities, the continuous good work that we've seen from our midnight basketball, all of the number of programs that we provide through parks and community programs during the summer for our youth and our young adults. U as well as career climb. Uh, so we have a myriad of things that we'll be rolling out. And again, this past weekend just sped up what we already had planned to start on the last day of school.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. So, if I understand you correctly, what I was asking for, we already we're already in process. Yes, sir. Okay. Understood that. And I just wanted to be clear to the public that this is we're not ignoring the other side of the equation and just focusing on law enforcement that there's other part of these, you know, wraparound services or the big picture that we're already working on. So, I appreciate you clarifying that and I want that to be clear to the public as well. Thank you, Director Phillips. Director Lewis, so thank you. Uh, what is it? Officer Dyer Chief Yeah, I'm I'm always been an officer. That's that's why I'm cutting my teeth.

Thank you for the clarification. But what I want to ask is just to get back on the seriousness seriousness of the citations. Can you dive a little deeper on the consequences? Like what happens when a citation is given? What are they looking at?

A lot of times it depends on the number of citations. If you get five citations in a summer, it's going to depend on the judge, the prosecutor, your record, things like that. Most of the time when we give a citation, um, and they go to juvenile court on the court date, it's thrown out or whatever the case may be, if it's your first offense. Um, and I can't speculate on what a judge is going to do, but I have yet to hear of a juvenile being fined or anything else on first offenses for citations. And and more than likely the citation is going to be for lording. It could be for disorderly conduct. It all depends on the attitude of the juvenile at that time.

Okay. And so for further clarification, is it if you are under the age of 18 and you are not with a parent or guardian, you are subject to be cited if you're in a group with a parent or guardian. You could be. Okay. What if you're doesn't have to be a guardian. It has to be a person above the age of 18. That's where I'm going next. These kids are smart. So now what if you got a group and you got 15, 16, 17 year olds, and then they got older brother and two older cousins. You see where I'm going? So now they're 21, 22, 23, all up to no good. But they'll say, "Well, I'm with uh this is a someone above the age of 18." How do we handle that?

We will handle that. Um no, no. I put this on public record so they can see that we are not playing like this matter and we thought ahead. Don't come out here with your older cousin.

Well, I do understand where you're coming from. Um, and we got without going too deep in the weeds, we have mechanisms in place to find out who is who. Um, it's one thing to say that to the police and be serious about it. So, I can't really go into the type of things we would do to find the find out the truth, but we would we have some things in place to where we can make some contacts and figure out some things because it's one thing to get a um lording citation. It's another thing to get an obstruction citation for lying. And we will charge you with that if that's something that what that you want to do. And most of the time the parents don't want to get into that. If we make contact with a parent and say, "Hey, is this so and so's whatever and can you prove that?" Now understand if you tell us that and it's not the truth, we'll be knocking on your door um with possibly citing you in mind. So, just like you don't want people to believe that we are kidding, um I assure you we are not joking about keeping the streets of Little Rock safe for everybody. And if that involves someone who wants to be a little bit outside of telling the truth to us,

Yeah. then we'll deal with it at that time. But we have mechanisms in place. Okay. because I know a lot of attention is given to downtown, but I it's citywide and absolutely. How are you all getting this information across? I know we have media outlets here, but how are we making sure that our adults understand how serious this matter is?

Well, we do have social media, but we also have uh we just sent out something to the school districts today. Okay. Uh we do have a person that normally send generates an email to a lot of the neighborhood associations and people like that. So it can be widespread and and it also needs to be understood once it gets out especially at the school district level it spreads like a wildfire. So that's not going to be a big issue at all with getting the word out because we want to be fair across the board. We don't want people to say well I didn't know. And that's where that grace comes in. You may not have known yesterday. Today you do know. So you need to move on. Have somebody come pick you up. Now when I catch you out next weekend, I didn't know is not going to work. So we do what we can with all the outlets that we have to get the message out that we need to get out.

Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. And yes, it is going to be citywide. Trust me. So please give some extra attention to my area. We're gonna give all the attention your area needs. Just remember you asked for it. It's on record. Director Hind. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to call a question. Is that That's a motion. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, please say I. Those both say nay. Eyes have it. All the group items. Uh we've had three readings. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those post say nay. eyes have it. What you say director,

Mr. Attorney, you have an emergency clause on number one. We have emergency clause on number one. All those in favor, please say I. I. Nay. Eyes have it. I have uh a motion to adjurnn. Well, we we'll come back to it. A motion. We still go. There's a motion. Second. All in favor, please say I. Post with an A. Eyes have it. Mean adjourn. We now start the agenda meeting. Uh, director uh, computers, before we start with the agenda. Thank you. This is a hope Thank you, Chief Dyer.

Hopefully a very easy one. I was contacted by uh, Congressman Hill's office that one of the constituents in Virgil's ward has been working with him to try to get Cypio Jones's home on the park registry. And so Virgil and I would like to have an a I guess just a resolution saying the board supports that sent to him. That's true. If we could just add that it's a it' be fairly simple to do.

Uh and that will take care of it. And then then it has to go through all through all they the the staff person told me it may take up to two years to get it done but this was the first step that we were supportive of it. So if we can add that. Yes sir. Uh director Miller did you want to Director Miller?

Yes. Well, thank you and uh I want to uh thank Director uh uh Compurus uh for his efforts on this and uh also want to give a big shout out to the president of the Dunbar Neighborhood Association uh Angel Burke for staying on top of this. She's been working on this for years and years to try to get this designation for the Cypio Jones House. Uh and looks like we're taking a step in the right direction. Uh shout out to her and again um uh shout out to Director Compus for uh for leading this effort. Thank you.

Uh thank you. Uh just a quick note, uh board members, um Sunday, this Sunday at 3:00, we'll have a uh city parade, uh for all of the state champions in the city of Little Rock, which includes um Plasky Academy uh girls who won their 4A uh championship, Hall High Warriors boys who won their 4A championship, and the best high school in the city of Little Rock, Quarview Arts and Sag Magna, who won their uh 5A state championship. ship, but all three together with Park View leading the way um in in downtown Little Rock.

Thank you. And I I don't know about I I forgot about the first security. We'll be providing them food. All right. But just want to make sure Park View Hall and Plast Academy. I think that may be the order or somewhere around that way. director web I think um we could go in alphabetical order

I actually I actually don't know what the order is but you know I just thought we'll kick that off before we go into the agenda actually so any questions um but it is a big day that's a big day and two also to have both the private school and the little rock school district working together being highlighted together um any questions on any modifications and the consent agenda. Director Miller,

thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Um, this may be for uh Director Howard on uh M1 resolution. I just have observation question about it. Um, congratulations number one on working with uh Arkansas Department of Finance uh administration after for appears to be getting 50% for this emergency solutions grant. I'm curious, uh, Little Rock is a title one city. We get our own ESG money. We get our own home funds. We get our own CDBG. How' this come about? uh from the state making money available to a title one city like Little Rock. How'd this happen?

Thank you, uh, Director Miller. That's a great question. Uh, education background on it. The city of Little Rock used to receive ESG funds back probably about 12 or 13 years ago. Um, then it was emergency shelter grant changed to emergency solutions grant. the city of Little Rock at that point uh the grant moved to the state and the state start administrating administering that that grant and so each and every person nonprofits uh municipal governments had to apply directly to the state to receive funding. It used to be with DHS it moved to ADFA about two years ago. Okay. So we do we get this money every year? Seems like

we do not. You have to make application and apply for it now. So this is the first time we applied for it that no sir. Did you apply for it last year or we did we applied we've applied the last five years for the grant. We receive ESG co funding. Um we came in front of the board and you all approved it. Uh we also uh apply for ESG regular funding. ESG regular funding from CO is a little bit different. Covert you don't have a match. With ESG regular funding you have a match. You have a dollar for-doll match. So, every time we apply for it, we get it. Not every time, but we did get it this year.

Okay. Well, congratulations. Can you tell uh tell us where this money is going to be spending? Is there a 10% admin that goes along with this that we take off the top? Yes. Uh we do receive admin. Um the admin's included in this? Yes. Okay. It's included. Um we are receiving 115,000 for uh rapid rehousing. Uh we're doing 35,000 for homeless prevention, 5,000 for uh street outreach.

So is this money subject to any type of public hearing? You know, we have some constituents from time to time have said they want to have public hearing. They want to direct how money could be spent or at least have their um concerns heard about how funds are spent. This money does not require a public hearing like that. Right. That's correct. That's correct. We're we're not receiving a direct allocation. It it's received by ADFA by the state. So the state has to hold those public hearings and let them know what they're doing with the funding. So the state has already had their public hearings. If individuals want to go to that, they could have gone to that. Yes. So we're not subject to that with this uh money. No, sir.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. Vice Mayor Wyatt. Yes, thank you. Um, resolution number three talks about our lawn care agreement for WS one and two and I'm happy we're doing this again, but what about the other the other areas? Have we already had resolutions or ordinances to take care of that? Specifically, W seven,

where are we with the other agreements? So we have uh three uh phases of mowing uh for the entire city and we have three contractors who do that and there's uh multiple different agreements that we have. So those are separate agreements which have already been done. Okay. So they're already this is this is one of the three. Okay. So this is just for wards one and two and the others have already been approved. Yes. Okay. Then I have questions on several of the ordinances. I don't know how you want to deal with that. Which questions do you have? Okay. Okay. Uh, I wanted to ask a question about item number six. Director Adcock has a question about that, too. So, that's two. And what's the next question? Okay. The then I have a question about item seven.

Director Acock has a question about that too. Item eight. We'll just go with six and seven and after that we'll go to other order and come back to item eight. Okay. Brad.

Yes, ma'am. This is uh number six is an ordinance that we've been uh we've been talking about for a while. Um when it was originally passed uh you could just change your residential home into a commercial property and it was a planned development forever. So it would forever stay that even if if it was sold many many times. You could sell it as a commercial property, sell it as an STR. uh we felt that um there was there were issues with that. Uh for one example that we always talk about around the office is you know we have people at the planning commission we have people that come before this board and they they want to have an STR. They make promises to this board. They say I'm going to do X Y and Z and I promise I'm going to be the best short-term rental owner that there is. Well, they may have that for a couple of years and then they'll they'll sell that to somebody else. that somebody else didn't make those same promises, that somebody else was not vetted by the planning commission and wasn't vetted by the board. Uh second part to that is we're having an issue with when people get their uh short-term rentals approved, they're not going forward with inspections. So, we're having to go out and sort of chase them down, get the inspections, and they're definitely not turning around to get the annual inspections. So we really feel that both of these things are can sort of marry each other. So we would know every year that if something sold that, you know, they have to come do an annual inspection every year. So we would know that that property was sold then and then they would have to come back through. So

So they'd actually have to go through a permitting process for the new owner. It would revert right back to its base zoning, whether that would be R2 or one of the residential zones. Okay. And and I what I my question was I wasn't clear that we did um any sort of inspection on the front end for STRs and so we do that. Yes ma'am. So everybody that's approved STRs been through that inspection period within the 90 days if you caught them. Yep. If you were able Yeah. And that Well, that's the Yes. That's the that's the thing. We're having to go out and catch them. They're not going that you know they're they're not taking that extra step. We're taking that step for them in a lot of cases.

Okay. Well, that was my that was my question on that one. Um should I continue or you can go to seven. Okay. Um item seven. This is a development that's on Chico Road and it's actually in Ward two. Mhm. But they have been before the planning commission and the board before. They have and it seems like it was just a short time ago they were here. Have they substantially changed their application where we should look at them again?

They they did sub substantially change the application. Uh as you recall uh correctly they came before the board uh planning commission passed by the planning commission came before the board and the board uh denied their application. Um our staff was recommending denial at that time because of just its impermanence. It had a, you know, impermanent trailer, had a had a a food truck that was just sitting there. It was gravel. Uh they were using a an old uh storage container as a retail space. Uh so we actually worked with with this family uh to uh to put forth a better site plan. Uh they're going to be uh they uh going to be putting forth um uh paving, going to upgrade the current uh structures. They're going to put in lighting. They're going to put in dumpsters. Uh they've gotten approval by Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority to uh to store their grease uh from their two permanent food trucks on site. So we we worked with this uh with this family over many many months to to get this right. So we recommend approval of it. So, is it going to be a food court or is it going to be uh just one food truck?

It's going to be two food trucks and a retail space. Retail space. So, they're keeping the retail space. Yes, ma'am. So, it's going to be be used just like it is now, but the site will be improved and it'll be I think I looked at the planning commission hearing and I I didn't I don't believe I remember any comments that were at the planning commission when that happened and there was quite a bit of opposition when they came before us in the beginning. Yes. So, there was there was no opposition. I thought I read. Okay. All right. So maybe they've satisfied the area to where it's

Yeah. And I know that they they worked really really hard to get funding to be able to do this. This is not an inexpensive uh task that they're they're asked to to to do uh to keep their business going the way they've been running it. We we are still supplying comments from citizens on planning commission minutes, aren't we? Yes. because I looked at several and I didn't see any I didn't see any interaction from the citizens. I'm thinking, well, are we still adding that to our information? And we are. Yeah, we are. Okay. Okay. Um, should I go to eight? No, ma'am. We're gonna now go to another director.

Okay. Director Phillips. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, quick question. And this is on number six as well. And it's more of a technical issue uh instead of programming issue. When I read the uh ordinance, Director Jordan, let me get to my I had it pulled up. When I read the ordinance, it said if they if they don't go through this 90day inspection, then the commission approval is void.

Yes. And this is a technical question because even if the commission approves it, it still have to come to us for us to approve the STR. So technically speaking, should it be the board approval void as opposed to the commissions? I think I will agree with your audible on this one. Okay. That it should be the board. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure from think Yeah, the ver the the verbiage should be the board. Okay. Right. So, city attorney, if we can make that adjustment before next week, I would appreciate it. That that's all I had. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, director. There there's another question on number six that that I've mentioned, too. They got direct action.

I have some concern with the idea that people own these and own them as plan developments and they think they are planned developments should stay with the property unless they're abandoned. And we're not going to say you can't sell them. And I don't know what the status of any of them are. We've got I think 141. There's 150. 15. Exactly.

But if we have John Doe who was in the process of trying to sell this and we're now telling him he can't sell it as a bed and breakfast only as a residential house and he can't get his investment back. We may be liable for a taking. So, I wanted to suggest that you put in a time frame that would amvertise this ordinance. We we talked with planning about this and we we didn't get together. That wasn't Brad's fault. Um but the concept of, you know, a year, two years, three years, you know, this is going to happen seems to me that it would be a a logical way for us to avoid anybody claiming a taking. And and I appreciate that comment um city attorney because I I did have that question. I forgot to ask it. So if I understand Tom correctly, and I think this is how I read the ordinance. If you own the STR and you sell it, this ordinance would say upon the sale, the STR designation ceases to exist and then that new owner will have to come back to us for approval of a STR. Is that am I understanding the practical impact of this ordinance?

That is simplistic simplistically put. Yes. And what if I understand you correctly to the attorney, you're saying that if we do that, there may be a legal issue from the either the seller or the buyer that something that probably should have ran run with the land is not running with the land and they would consider that at least for a period of time. Yes.

Okay. Um that's an interesting question. um that I think we probably need to get some guidance on from your office, city attorney, on what time period would suffice. I I don't know if there is a time period that would suffice, but if there is, maybe we need to get that and figure that out and make that adjustment to this ordinance as well. I don't want to vote on something that's going to get us sued. Uh so if there's a time period where like you said one year or two year that would make more sense then I I think we need to know that before we vote on it and do so do we need to and I I know other people have questions about number six but is that something we can get before next week or do does this need to be tabled?

I obviously we can't take and I need to get together and we will do this. I think what I would say is that we we did advertise non-conforming uses a few years ago and and they used to last for three years. I think it's 18 months now, something like that.

18 months. It becomes a non-conforming use. It's a PDR, so it can be a bed and breakfast in a residential neighborhood if they've sold it to be a bed and breakfast. Um, you know, that's one thing. But if they sold it and somebody's made it a house, then it ought not to be a bed and breakfast to the next person they sell it. So maybe 18 months of not being used as a bed and breakfast or passing inspection. Uh it reverts reverts to our whatever jurisdiction uh zoning classification it is. And then that ties in with what we've got for other non-conforming uses. In in that vein, um, Tom, I know we treat traditional bed and breakfastes and STRs a little bit different.

We do. Does the traditional bed and breakfast if that is sold, does that run with the land to the new owner or do does in that situation would they have to come back and get bed and breakfast approval? Those are those are special use permits versus plan developments. So if you live within 100 and or 1500 ft of the property if you live at a bed and breakfast uh that's a that's a special use permit. So that would transfer to the buyer. That would not mean the seller. That would not that would not that would not transfer. It's like but like a conditional use permit doesn't transfer. Okay.

Short-term rental twos people that could live out of state. Those are the ones that that are planned developments and those are the ones that we're are really the the the issue I think that we're that we're talking about. Those are the those are the ones that that have many people filling up this room talking about neighborhoods being chipped away and and other issues like that.

Okay. Yeah. I think we need to get the research on that and I'd love to hear my colleagues thoughts about this either this week or next week. Um because it's an interesting question. And I mean, if we approved it once, do we want to go back and have to reapprove it if it's sold in 6 months? I don't know that. That's a question that we are up here to decide, but I just want to make sure we understand that from the legal the legal ramifications of it as well. So, thank you, Director Jordan. Thank you, Tom. Thanks, Mayor.

And and Tom and and board members, I think we just we need to have that question answered before you guys vote on it. And so, in the meantime, let's just take it off. It's not a rush to do. So, we'll take it off and give the uh the city attorneys time to figure that out. We don't need to rush that because it's going to create chaos. So, we will take it off the agenda. We'll take um what number is that? Six or six. Six. We'll take six off um until time certain. And mayor, I apologize for not getting something more together before now. No problem. Uh director, I think that answered Did you have another question, director? Yes, I have a question on item seven.

She is I'm keeping it in order. You take up I don't think director need. I'm just joking. All right. Sorry, Director Akott. We were having a little fun. Okay. Um Brian, item seven. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Several weeks ago, excuse me, several weeks ago, I met with some of your staff and we discussed that you're doing a new ordinance pertaining to food trucks and in fact they showed me an ordinance that I've been waiting to come up here and we still haven't seen it.

We have a lots of pro problems with food trucks particularly in southwest low rock. You can't go down G Springs or baseline without seeing one every few feet and we need something done. So why are we pushing this at this time? Why are we not waiting for the new ordinance to come in? Because does this follow everything that that new ordinance is going to have in it or is this jumping ahead?

This is Well, ma'am, first we're not pushing it at all. This is this was an application that was put to the planning commission and we're just bringing it forward. Uh secondly, this is making it a plan development. It was making it permanent. It wouldn't fall under the the peddlers agreement that any like if I had a food truck and I wanted to go park it in front of Director Phillips's commercial business uh and move it every night, it it's two they're two different things. This is one is making it a permanent development. The other is rules for impermanent food trucks.

I still have a problem with the fact that we're jumping ahead of coming back and looking at the whole situation by having this because now we going to have these coming before us all the time trying to get ahead of what you are going to be recommending as a policy for the whole city. I think director act I think what he's what he's trying to share this is completely different uh than what would take place in the food truck ordinance because it's it's it's um more of a standalone of sorts than it would be for a traditional food truck. It would still be two foods trucks sitting on a piece of property. That's correct.

But it's just from a legal standpoint and how did they go through the process is just totally different. That's why the people driving down G Springs or in this on Chico is not going to know that this is different because they hopped in here and got it done before the things that you're going to be presenting to us are being looked at. And I think mayor that's I don't want to look like that we're now doing this hopping. Let's do it now and now now and not wait until we look at the whole food truck. I understand. But that legally we we I mean they present the application. We can't do that. That Yeah. So that's Tom. Is that correct? We can't do this legally.

What you've got is a situation where they've proposed a substantially different application from the one that was rejected. Um if this one is rejected, then they've got to wait another year or come up with a substantially different uh application. Um yeah, they absolutely So, I think the risk is being taken by the applicant. I don't know what the time frame is for the new food truck ordinance, though. I mean, it it's it's not ready because you haven't seen it either, right? That's correct.

And so, that there's this and when is it going to be ready? Because I know director um some of the other directors have worked on this in the past. I've worked on it in the past and we always get pushed aside and we've not looked at what we're going to do about food trucks in this city. So, when do you see it coming before us? We'll we'll work together and figure out a timeline and get that to you, Director Ekot. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right, Director Web, then Director Hines. Thank you, Mayor Scott. And this is back on six. Then do you want us to hold them since we're going to

Yeah, if we're since we're postponing it. But if you No, you do whatever you want to do. You got the floor. I'd like to go ahead and ask two questions. And one to Director Phillips's point, this came up at a neighborhood meeting last night. And yes, they do. We do want to uh have it revert back um if the property is sold. At least that's the opinion from my opinion.

Yes, ma'am. Um and second um we've had a lot of issues and if you as you have said we've filled up the room multiple times uh to talk about this issue and how did you all come up with these were the issues that we needed to tweak in the ordinance. We just saw it, we saw it becoming more of an issue as in just like I stated, we don't know if it's a if it's a short-term rental in 2026, in 2036 is still going to be short-term rental, but that could have changed hands four times. I mean, it's just like an apartment complex. It might be fantastic when it's built, but if it changed hands more and more and more and more, you know, that fifth or sixth owner is probably not going to take care of it care of it as much as the the first owner did.

And kind of the last thing, and this is a comment, and we've said we had 150 on the registry, and I got a an email from a short-term rental owner last night who has a number of properties. He said to the best of his calculation, we're over 1,200. And so, um, you you and I can talk about that, but it's that's a very different number. And, uh, I don't know where they're getting that number. And, and you know him. I'll I'll send you a Okay, we'll talk about it, but that's something else that we've got to think about as we move forward. Thank you, Sam. That's all. Mayor, Director Hines,

thank you. I got a comment on six and uh uh and then something on 10. Uh even though I'm not a licensed attorney, I would agree with our two attorneys sitting to my right that if it looks like a taking and it smells like a taking under Arkansas State Constitution, it's a taking. And I would be very cautious on how we proceed with this. The other caveat would be that if we do something like this and try to take people's property rights, the short-term rental industry will be at the capital preempting us the next legislative session and we will have no ability to regulate. And I think, you know, it it we're on a very slippery slope on both both counts. I I think maybe the amortization deal where if it doesn't operate as that uh I know you guys want to try to determine what can be bought and sold, but not only the Arkansas state constitution, but the US Constitution guarantees our property rights. I'm not going to trample on anyone's property rights. Um that's the only comments I've got there. On 10, I'd like this to be held separate and give me a short synopsis on this. I drove by this property today after hearing from some of the some of the commercial neighbors in the vicinity and there's been some issues with this property. I want to see what kind of what what staff and planning commission. I've had some communication with water reclamation today as well uh that we're we're going to have a deeper discussion on Friday.

Yeah, this is that old Joe's grocery store that's on the corner of Colonel Glenn and Lawson Road. everyone. It's been there for years and years. Uh it's a 30,000 foot commercial building. Uh they are requesting to reszone it from R2 to uh PDC to utilize the building uh on the site as a pool hall with food and drink service. Uh there will be six employees at any given time. Um there will be screening. um staff didn't feel like there's sight distance issues right there at the corner is again it's it's it's been there for years.

You know, they have no they have a septic tank that's overflown several times in the last few years. It's it's I'm just minus. It's an eyesore. They've still got old gas pumps that haven't been removed sitting out front from when it was the grocery store.

I've got some serious issues with this. Uh I was kind of shocked to see that water reclamation said it was okay. uh for this reuse, which I'm going to have a conversation with them on Friday. Um not not forcing them to hook to city sewer to me is an issue. And with all the other development we've had in that area, this is I don't know that permitting a a a new use on that site uh improves the situation, especially if they're not going to hook to sewer or do any other improvements on the property. Um, but I want to hold this separate. We'll do. Thank you. Any more questions, members of the board? Any more questions?

Vice Mayor W. I'd like a presentation on item eight and item well, Lance took care of item 10 very successfully there. And item 13. Item eight and 13. Yeah.

Uh item eight, uh the applicant request to reszone the 36 acre property from R2 single family to R4 two family district. Uh it's reszoning for future development. Uh the property is currently undeveloped and partially tree covered. Uh there's a mix of uses and zoning in the area. Uh the land use is mixed use. uh staff uh and the planning commission uh both recommend approval of it. Once again, I didn't see any comments. So, um there were there were no opposition. Yeah. Okay. All right. And so item 10, I'm sorry, item 13,

the applicant uh is to reszone a 1.66 66 acre property from C2 to PCD to allow a three lot commercial development. Uh it is located in Ward 7. Uh the property is currently undeveloped and wooded. It is uh next to the Sonic uh uh right next to on stage coach and otter creek road. Uh there are three lots requesting C2 permitted uses. The front two lots will be developed. the lat the the one in the rear will be developed at a later date. Uh the first lot is going to be a 1600 uh square foot single tenant uh uh development. Lot two is a 3,150 foot. It's a two-tenant development. Uh both will have uh drive-throughs in the rear. Uh the entrance will be from Otter Creek Road, not from Stage Coach.

I looked at it on the sketch. And do you think they have enough parking for these buildings? Um, it looks like they have parking in the front. I don't know how many. I don't they they they're showing 20 parking spaces. Okay. It didn't look like that many to me. But then on the back piece the that you said they were going to develop later. It looked like they just had two spaces back there. Yeah, they'll they'll be developing that later. They didn't they didn't uh put forth a site plan for that. Okay. So, the drive-thru was just to cut through the different lots. It's not like a drive-through restaurant or a drive-thru business. Uh, I'm not sure what the restaurants would be. I would assume that the one of them would at least be a fast food restaurant, but not

You said drive-thru, which makes me think somebody's coming through. Right. Right. And there is a shared access for the whole development. So, it's it it's all it's all Okay. All right. That was it. Thank you, director. All right, Director Phillips and Director Lewis. Uh, thank you, Mayor. This is on number 18. Um, and Brad, is that does that fall under you? Uh, it does, but I will allow Mr. Carpenter to to share his thoughts. Okay. Well, my question is I understand the

the spirit of this and I'm and I'm good with the spirit of it, making sure that people are um crossing tees and checking boxes as it relates to people who are on uh the sex offender registry. My question is how how are neighbors notified? So, if someone does update their group home and say, "Okay, yeah, now we have two people." They're sharing that information with us, the city. Correct. So, how does the neighbors how they made aware that this ordinance bans it to I understand they demand to share it with us? I'm talking about to

bans the ability to do that. The ordinance arose because uh at one or two different group homes uh were coming to us for applicants and they included people that were on the sex registry which has four classifications. Four is the worst and I think the definition is predator but um one and two is the least. We started talking with planning about this of well, you know, should we care if it's the type of group home that's dealing with people that are essentially not ambulatory? And um we started looking around the country and we found out that there are cities that ban any person on a sex registry from a group home. Group homes are typically in residential neighborhoods and they have some protection under federal law, but the sex registry persons are not permitted automatically by any of those laws to be there. So, it is a policy question for the board. Um, and I I think I I'll defer to Brad, but I think we finally came up with the conclusion that there was no way we could recommend anything except none. And if the board wanted to do anything, fine. But the question you raised is a is a really interesting one. And it is interesting because what if it is like the one in North Little Rock that was basically a type of uh almost hospice or or or care home where there were people there that essentially were not ambulatory uh and and a sex offender moved in. I mean, I'd like to think everybody would pay grace and be over it and not worry about it. On the other hand, what was it? Michael Dakus who pardoned a guy and he turned around and murdered

somebody else within two or three weeks, you know, and it really came out during his campaign. So, does the city even want to look at that? If these are going to be group homes which are basically treating people that have uh conditions and they're in residential neighborhoods, how do we want to make sure that it'll be reported? There are certain things that group homes, particularly now, are supposed to report in terms of sex offenders or or criminal offenders. And there have been times in the past when we've had trouble getting that information. And how are we going to know that the information is actually accurate, that the person really has been removed from the list or the person really isn't on the list anymore? I mean, we really don't have that. So, the question for the board is how do you want to deal with this? What you've got before you is an ordinance that says easy. You can't be a group home even with your eight in a residential area if any of those are sex offenders.

Did I miss anything? You got it. Let Let me make sure I understand it. And I know we're not voting today, but for my consideration, if you're a group home and you want to house a sex offender, then what what if you already if you can't do it, I guess, is what this would it would prohibit them from doing it, right? And if you're a current group home that does have a person as of today and we pass this, do they have to kick that person out? Yes.

Okay. they couldn't be a group home. They couldn't have the zoning for a group home. My understanding is we don't know that we've got that situation. We do know that we've got an applicant who wants to have at least two people who will be members

and yeah and and uh Mr. Carpenter in that case uh there were actually three individuals that were on the registry and they um they were supposed to go before planning this past Thursday. They right before the meeting, they pulled their application. Uh instead of having five people, they wanted to up the the um the PE uh the number of people there to eight. So, they had to change. Okay, that's good. All right, Director Phillips still has the floor.

Well, I I appreciate that that clarity and I I do understand that's a policy question and I also understand we're not voting today. Um, but it's a interesting dynamic where we're saying that something that currently exists should not exist and then those people who are on the registry or are in those homes will need to find something else to do, another place to live and we will decide that next week to be continued. So, I just wanted to make sure I understood what we're going to vote on next week. So, y'all have done that. So, thank you both. Thank you, mayor. All right, Director Lewis, then director.

Quick question about 11 ordinance about the short-term rental. Mhm. Do you have any opposition? No opposition. Perfect. Nope. No opposition. Director. Yes. Mr. Carpenter, this is along the same lines. when you have a motel or a hotel, but motel uh that are standalone and they have sex offenders living in them. Is that permitted?

Director Hancock, I'm not an expert on the sex offender laws. My understanding is is that you are if you are level two or below, you can live within certain areas. your level three. There is an area you can't with live live within that's near residential housing or children or schools. And level four is even more restrictive. That's the that's a very 30,000 ft. Mr. Attorney, do do you think we need to bring in a expert before we ask the board to do it and then it creates some other legal issues? Well, yes, mayor, because

let's postpone. We'll do that. Thank you. someone to provide alongside the uh item six I believe. Yes. And if we need to and Mr. Carpenter, if we need to do a quick uh or expedite it, uh we have some uh firms on retainer. So, let's just figure out one of the two or three firms we have. And if that's what you want to do or not, whatever you you'll figure it out. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wyrick,

I just have a comment about the the item we just talked about. I've builded a several meetings with neighborhood associations about group homes and the group homes want to go in residential areas because they like the idea of residences being close to these individuals that are in group homes. The very first thing that everybody talks about is sex offenders. So it would be high on the residents that they would not have these kinds of folks in their neighborhoods next door to them. So I think we're on I think we're on a good track here if we can just come up with the language to to make it happen. And most of the time they say no, we don't have any we don't have any way to follow through or enforce or any laws in regards to it. So I think it's good that we we set up something.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Director Peek. Are we through? This was just an announcement. It's Yes. Okay. I I just wanted to let everybody know that next Tuesday at Rotary is the annual uh police and fire um appreciation. Um I don't know if the city's going to have a table, but if not, if any of my colleagues would like to attend, it's a it's a great event. The city have a table. We we do have a table. Oh, then I don't have to pay for them. So, come. It's great. It's at noon uh in the Grand Ballroom and it's really a wonderful event. And just say you were the city of Little Rock and they'll they'll figure out the payment for it.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I do want to take this time and and we'll probably have a more um we'll bring uh the entity before us, but I want to take this time to share uh kudos to uh the Little Rock uh the Metropolitan Housing Alliance. They did close on their loan. Want to uh give uh give both the opportunity of both Director Miller and Director Adcock to give any remarks. you guys have been um intimately involved uh in regards to that, but also to uh Southern Bank Corps. Um want to share our appreciation to that Arkansas owned bank that helped bail them out uh under leadership of chairman uh Darren Williams. Uh Director Miller, then director Atcock.

Thank Thank you, Mayor. Um, again, I I also want to uh commend the Little Rock Housing Authority doing business as Metropolitan Housing Alliance for getting this done. Uh, the leadership there under Dr. German uh and the uh commission under the leadership of Chairman Bruce James. But even more so than that, uh it is a big win for the residents of Madison Heights 1 and two. those are the real winners here. Uh and so I'm glad that that got done. Uh I'm happy for the leadership uh at uh MHA uh and their commission, but I'm happier for the residents who uh now seem to have some stability as far as housing is concerned. Thank you for mentioning that, mayor.

Thank And I also want to lift up uh while they're not current members now, but uh both Karen Buchanan who played a large role uh as well as uh Mr. Baker Courage too. So I know he played a role in that process too. So I want want to make sure everyone is acknowledged. Um Director Acock, can you press Director Acock? We want to make sure. Thank you. You got it. Let let it go.

It's the people that really was the winners of this, the people who have lived there. And I want to thank them for coming up here and they came and came and came and I think that was a big help in making everyone understand how important this was. It gave it a heart. Thank you, director. All right, mayor. This may be and also I want to recognize you. you played you and your team. I want to recognize Lynette Perez because well, director, you can't take my recognition away from me.

So, I want to I want to recognize you as well as Lynette who spent a lot of time doing the legal work as well and a lot of hours. Now, you can recognize Lynette. She was a champion. Oh, all right. Director Miller,

on a somber note, Mayor, I I just want to take just a second to uh uh this board to uh express condolences for the loss of a great citizen in this community, Bishop Kenneth Robinson, uh who uh touched this community in so many ways uh that uh transitioned on Sunday. uh who's a good friend, personal friend, but uh he is he was a giant not only in this community uh not only in the state but nationally with uh his affiliations uh with his religious organization with his music and certainly in business. Uh he will be missed.

Totally uh agree. We'll take a moment of silence for Bishop Kenneth L. Robinson. Amen. All right. Meeting a journal.