Board of Directors - Special Meeting

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Good evening. I want to welcome everyone to our city Little Rock Board of Director special call meeting for April 28th. Um, madame clerk, if you will please call the role. Director Miller. Director Web. Director Peg here. Director Hines present. Director Lewis here. Director Compir. Director Phillips. Director Adcock present. Vice Mayor Wyrick present. Mayor Scott

here. I'll now ask um Director Lance Hines to give a brief uh prayer. Please bow your heads. Dear Lord, we gather here today to take on the business of the city and our first responders in this request. We please watch for your guidance and everything that we do, say, and hear today. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam clerk, if you would please read the resolution. No, not for a resolution.

A resolution. A resolution to I mean, I'm sorry. A resolution to authorize the city manager to execute a retainer agreement with Grant and Eisenhoffer PA and to authorize the city attorney to prosecute affirmative litigation on behalf of the city of Little Rock is a named plaintiff in first federal class action proceedings seeking recovery of costs arising from the purchase of PFAS contaminated firefighter turnout gear and for other purposes. That concludes the consent agenda. Adoption resolution. There's a motion second. All those favor please say I. I.

All those post they eyes have it. I want to thank uh our city attorney and and chief deputy attorney uh city attorney Carpenter and chief deput attorney Lynette Perez for your hard work uh in this matter uh to uh potentially aid our firefighters through this process. Director Miller.

Thank Thank you, Mayor. And uh certainly uh I think this is great. Get this thing done. We need that. I'm just curious um what type of gear are are our firefighters wearing now uh in light of this revelation about what they're wearing or what we've purchased. Chief Dome and we and before Chief Dome, one of the things this board has done is done a great job of of fulfilling new turnout gear over the years, but this tracks stuff from decades ago.

Yes, sir. Thank you for that question. Thank you, members of the board. Mayor, uh we do have gear that does contain this substance, this poly floral alcohol uh substance. Currently they've disclosed that it's in the moisture barrier of our gear in between the two the outer garment and the inner garment. Uh measures that we take uh is to uh decontaminate as quickly as possible after wearing the gear. Uh we are currently wear testing gear that is uh P5 free at this time. Members of our uh health and safety committee as well as some members that are in the uh uh in the field. So we still are wearing some of this gear at this point.

That is correct. Okay. Um, but you don't see at this point you're taking measures to to deal with this present gear. Are we trying to get out of this gear? We are. It is a a topic with our health and safety committee and they are actively working on getting out of this gear and specking out a set. Like I said, we have five members that are wearing gear. Wear testing is what we call a gear right now. Okay. All right. Thanks, Mayor. That's all I have. All right. Thank you.

Thank you so much. There's a second. All in favor, please say I. Post say nay. Eyes have it. Meeting adjourn. We're now starting with our agenda meeting. Any questions on modifications as well as the consent. Director Hines,

I got a question on resolution four for Man and staff and this goes back to the question I had earlier on another small contract. I understand that we're doing this. I guess I don't understand. Vulker has certified surveyors, correct? Yes, they do. So why wasn't this we have another small contract coming for surveying from another engineering firm for 29,000.

So they are the only for so the services that they were this particular one that's on the agenda tonight is for uh right ofway acquisition services. They they they can also do other survey services like boundary surveys. Uh but if we were to contract that out, we they're the only firm that can do both of those things together. So we wanted to make sure that all firms have uh an opportunity to to assist with this work. Uh so the topograph so the boundary survey is being uh done separately and we've selected uh craft and tull to do that work.

Right. So to this project it's core of engineers project correct? Yes sir. What's the city's share on this project? So we So I have that breakdown here. So the city itself has a million dollars from ARPA funding. Uh we have about $300,000 that's our own funding from uh the 2022 bond program. And then we have half a million that the core of engineers is pulling in for this project. Okay. And so the total expenditure on this project it's about 1 1.8 millionish. And how many homes are impacted?

There's four properties in involved in this project in in that vicinity. Like the the the project affects multiple areas but but directly affecting the properties. There are four of them. Okay. Those are houses that have been inundated. We've had flooding. Yes. Okay. So, and I guess the question is I looked at this neighborhood on the core of engineers map on this project because evidently they have a homepage for it. So, they have the net return on this project is negative 90,000. So, we're going to spend all this money. Are we going to run will these houses then be out of the flood plane or floodway or are they still going to have to buy flood insurance?

That's a good question. It's okay if you don't know the answer. get it to me. I just I just curious that we're spending all this money and if we've only got four houses, it seems to be that maybe four houses in that neighborhood that are in this this issue, maybe a better use would be to find folks a new house in this neighborhood with with said money, especially if we're going to spend all this money and not get resolution that it's I mean, this is part of a bigger area. I'm just just curious and wanted to know why we structured it this way. But that's fine. I appreciate your

the project itself is for clearing and snagging that ditch area. Now, that is supposed to alleviate the drainage issues. Now, I don't know if that removes those properties from the uh floodway, right? And and the other question is is that does this private property owner that we've got to acquire property from, do they not have a responsibility to to clear those snags? Uh they it would be difficult. Uh I guess I mean I'll have to get you some answers on the on that. I appreciate a little more little more color. For sure. For sure. I'll get you something. Yes, sir. Vice Mayor W.

Thank you. I have a question on item number one. Um I guess Hello again. Um, this is um an item that I thought the highway department was funding, but yet it looks like the city of Little Rock is going to put $400,000 into it. What What is the $400,000 for? So, Art was originally going to do a resurfacing project there and currently there are like four lanes, two lanes in each direction for traffic and then there's bike lanes and as a part of that project uh there was a lot of concern from the residents that uh you know a four-lane highway is very dangerous for all the prop all the adjacent properties to make turns on to and off from the highway. So with that uh they made a request to provide a two-way left turn lane which is you know which basically eliminates the bike you know bike lanes. So a request was made to add a shared use path or some some form of transportation method for bicyclists as well. So with that uh the city of Little Rock reached out to Ardot and uh requested to partner with them uh to provide a shared use path. Uh it has been discussed that there's an opportunity uh through the TAP funding program through ARDOT uh to partner with them and get some funding from that as well. So with that this is what we're trying to do. So $400,000 is 80% uh sorry 20% of the uh funding that we're requesting. So it's a 8020 match. So that's the approach that we're taking.

Where does the $400,000 come from? It's coming from our street funds. From street funds. Yes, ma'am. It's not a W seven project. No, it's not from a W seven project. Okay. Because I'm thinking, okay, what is left off of the the streets that we'd already picked? So Okay. All right. Um, I have one more question. It's on item. Vice Mayor W, just just so you're aware. Um, this was a a lot of conversations. Actually, this is probably now two or three years old cuz actually Manisha wasn't here when we had the initial convers were you here? You were assistant. You were assistant. John was the director and um state representative

sheriff and state senator Fred Love asked me to come to the capitol to meet with Jared Widley and um can't think who else was in the room but long story short Jesse Jones maybe Jesse Jesse and Kelly as well so this has been going on for about three years about this partnership. Yeah I'm aware of that. I just wanted to know where the money was coming from and exactly what we wound up doing. So, I appreciate you letting me know that. Thank you. And at some point, you'll see a resolution come to the board to uh allow us to enter enter into an agreement with ARDOT for uh partnering on this project. So, expect that in the next few weeks.

Thank you. Thank you. have a question on six wanted to know what parks we were going to be doing mowing maintenance on with this contract and how many times will we mow these parks?

Uh good evening board and mayor and city manager. Um so these are zones that we have. We actually have zones one, two, and then we have the community centers which is for the collective total. I think you asked how many cuts. There are 38 cuts per year for each park. Um we have these are weekly cuts. We've worked on this contract greatly. We've been working on a um we had it for three years. We're renewing now. um we're making huge modifications in the fact that um in the past if we had a major storm event um we were still paying in different understandings that the staff contractor are still doing the work. We're now not paying on this contract unless the work is um performed uh is a change. Um these are also um focused on when the season when the grass is growing the most. So that's April through November. From November to April, we're only cutting uh bi-weekly or as as needed and then we'll only be charged for that. So, what we're trying to do is the price has gone up a little bit uh for several reasons, but we're also able to um realize a reduction if it's not being accomplished because of different reasons.

Sounds like a good plan. Can you give us a list of the parks that would I don't have the full I don't have the full list. There's 11 and 10. We mow uh approximately uh half of our parks. This will cover 32 parks. We've changed all the locations um for this contract a little bit. And what I mean by that, I know that's vague, but there's certain areas of war memorial, for example, I use that as one example that we were doing all inhouse. Now, we're going to start cutting the front door of the park is what I call it with a contractor. And so, we have different zones throughout the parks. I can provide you that detailed information.

I wasn't familiar with zones. I didn't know where the zones were, that kind of thing. So, I was concerned about war memorial, but also is Henman a part of this? So Heinman Park is part of it, the original part, but the actual um old golf course is not. We mow that with our uh staff with our large bush hog. Um and so we we don't currently include that. Okay. So around the clubhouse, that area is going to be mowed in house. It is. Okay. Thank you.

Yes. just to um share, I did just have somebody that reached out from our last night um neighborhood association about um they offer lawn care services and they said that they would be happy to help with um Heinman and so I passed that along with to my staff and we'll see maybe about a one-off contract for that individual but we'll see. Thank you for your questions. Director Hind questions on the item 15 if we're there. We're there. Just a presentation on that

presentation item 15. So, this is our year-end budget amendment that we do each year for the audit um to balance out the funds based on the actual expenditures that occurred within each of the funds. Goes away at 15. Item 15.

You have a presentation? No. Can I bring up the It's just It's just a budget. It's the balancing out of it's a year in budget. Just click the board communication. Communication. There you go. So Nick, this just a chewing up of actuals versus budget. Yep. Where do we end the in the year? Revenue above budget.

Uh revenue above budget for the full year. If you go to the base original budget, we were plus um that number that original number is un amended. So it was about a 7 to8 million. Okay. plus of the original budget for 25 roughly what percentage growth? Two and a half, three%. Yeah, which is pretty much our standard growth each year. We did really well in sales tax, right? Rate of inflation. Sales tax was actually a little higher in 25 than rate of inflation. We did really well. Super. Thank you. Yep.

Dot. Yes. Mine was also on 15. I would like to make sure it's a separate item. It says separate on this. And I would like for the board to have a copy of this, please. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Any more questions, members of the board? Vice Vice Mayor Wag then director Miller.

Thank you. Um we received um email from Dr. Jarmman about the MHA and I know she's working on a response has 10 days to do that. But when we've worked through MH MHA in the past year or so, we've had a lot of people that were concerned about their housing and what was going to happen to them. And uh Mr. Carpenter, this question is for you. Uh I know you are looking into the information that came from HUD, but there's a thing called an ACC, which is an annual contributor contract, which I believe is an overlying umbrella contract for MHA housing. And regardless of whether or not we do anything with the uh recovery agreement, we still have this ACC or annual contributor contract that protects the individuals from losing their rental property is the way I understand it. Uh there was an agreement, I think it was 30 years and there probably is still 20 years left there. So, I I don't believe that they're in jeopardy of losing their housing. Can you answer that question? I' I'd like for them not to worry about that as we work through whatever happens with MHA.

My understanding of both Dr. Garman's letter and of the HUD letter is that whatever happens, the people will still have housing. And the main thrust is to make sure that more people will have housing. Okay. All right. So, uh, we can take that back to the individuals that might have concerns about it that they would still have a place to live as long as they follow whatever the rules are for the entity. Thank you,

Director Miller. Thanks, Mayor. I I was curious um as it relates to the interlocal agreements that we have of course spelled out here uh with Sheridan and North Little Rock and Cabbat you know with MIMS. How many interlocal agreements do we have with various jurisdictions?

We've got numerous ones. When Memphis was created, it was originally uh an interlocal agreement between the city of Little Rock and the city of North Little Rock in part because the uh consultants that we hired found that if we didn't have the volume of the two cities together, then it would not be it would not be financially viable. So, that helped. And then as Mims has grown and become the premier service within the state and having the premier executive directors like Greg Thompson who's here tonight. Um we got inquiries from other places if we would move into them. So I he can tell you the actual. I know we've got Faulner County. I think we've got alone anymore.

Okay. We're not in Faulner anymore. Why don't you let Greg tell you? It was established in 1984 as a public utility and he's right. Little Rock and Noral Rock were the first two that started. Plasky county folded in after that and then over time Sherwood because of the size city cab so a piece of Lone Oak um the uh Sheridan that you see went into Grant County early that not that was kind of that was kind of an anomaly there. We're no longer in Faulner County. Um, are you in right still? Yes. Part of Plasky County. All of Palaski County.

Yes, sir. All of Plasky County. And so, uh, Mims being a public utility, so no profit taker. You know, we we exist like the water department off. We sell, we take care, we deliver people, we get paid for that. That's all. Nobody else feeds us. And so the the the footprint that we have right now makes sense as far as the the size that of the economies of scale. M is not looking to actively grow. We were really designed to cover the footprint that we cover. Okay. I was curious. Thank Thank that answered my question. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Board members, any more questions? Uh, Chief Hubbert, you want to

I think Director Hines kind of already touched on it, but if there was any questions in regards to the um professional services under 50,000 anyone had. Thank you. All right. Meeting a journal.