City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the meeting to order. This is Bella Vista City Council work session for March 16, 2026. Uh first item is uh review of the minutes from the February 23, 2026 meeting. Any comments on that? Okay. Uh next item, we're going to move around a little bit. Um we're going to take item I in discussion items, which is about ambulance fees. Uh, Chief Steve Sims is here and he's got someone else to make a presentation also. Again, thank you and and greetings council members. What I have in front of you here is um a topic of discussion and some food for thought and some history of our um current ambulance service fee schedule or or current what we charge for ambulance fees. I've also got Bonnie uh Tim Kimala here from uh EMS billing on Yosho which she does all our EMS billing has for the last what nine years nine years for a long time got her here to help help us out kind of explain some of the the information we're going to go over today but first of all I want to kind of give you a little bit of history and a little bit of um information about currently what we charge who our payers are and um kind of moving forward into what we're looking at proposing ing maybe looking at in the future for our charges for animal service charges. So, first of

all, everybody's got some sheets here, right? Sheets of paper. The first paper you have right there is our credit summary for um our 2025 revenue. It's a revenue report for the city of Bella Vista Amulance Service. And u as you can see as you're looking through here, the um where it starts out with a transaction fees and it moves on down. That's who our payers are um to the um city ambulance service. Okay. So, you got some of your direct deposit a transaction fees, interest payments, um payment facilities, and I want to kind of um payment attorney fees, payment insurance. As you can see, we do a lot of um with um this private insurance as far as um paying out goes. That's $369,000 we collect for private insurance. But our biggest payer currently right now is Medicare and Medicare Advantage, which we collect around $700,000 a year roughly for those um two payers on that. Veterans Administration, we have a few private pay um 914 which equates to 196,000 or so with a with a total of a,400,000 that we collected last year 2025 and am service fees to the city. So that's just real quick. If you look over on the next next um sheet of paper, 2016, we went we raised our fees from $650 to $825. That was the first fee um change or rate or set that we done when we moved over into the city back in 2000 in in that era, which was a change of $175 about 21% increase. That was in in 2000 and that took effect in January of 2023.

The next page is just a resolution showing where that was passed at and when that when that went in effect. What we're looking at doing since last year in the summer of last year, there's a act 867 that um was passed and signed by the governor that will allow animal services to charge um private insurance 325% of the Medicare allowables. And I have Bonnie here behind me here that's going to kind of go over that act, reason for that act. she has a little bit more information than I do as far as um the act goes and what other people are doing in the region um around the around the area, especially the one she she does billing for on what they're doing. And also in the back of your um the back of your document there, there's one single sheet of paper that actually shows some of the ambulance fees that are being charged currently in in Northwest Arkansas as of 2025. Now, some of these fees have changed a little bit. I know Springdale in October of last year, Springdale went and raised their fees based off that that act, that house bill and act that was signed by the governor. As far as raising fees, they did go up, they did change theirs almost double their fees in Springdale. Um, that was in October of last year based off that based off of what we're talking about here today. But if you look at some of the northwest Arkansas fees, you can see that there's a lot of people that's charging a lot more for ambulance service than the city of Bella Vista or even Bentonville and and so forth. But Bonnie has a lot more information on on the act itself, the what she's seeing going around, who's changing their fees, reason why they're changing their fees, and a little bit more on based on why the act was kind of put in place. Is that correct?

Yes. So I'm gonna ask Bonnie Damala to come up here from EMS billing show. So Bonnie, if you come on up.

Hello. Thank you for having me. Um appreciate it. Uh the city of Bella Vista is my favorite. So um love this area. So but thank you. Uh yes. Um ambulance fees. uh it's been a few years since the city of Bella Vista has increased its rates on ambulance service and uh it was becoming time to okay let's look at this well um and because the Arkansas Ambulance Association uh went together to get this house bill passed um in last summer to say that insurance companies have to consider up to 325% of the Medicare fee schedule um in order to um and pay on those claims at that rate. 325% of the Medicare fee schedule is a pretty significant increase for the city of Bella Vista. Um and what we're seeing, and I'm seeing it also in across Northwest Arkansas for some of these others, Central EMS, Pafford EMS have actually got rates very close to these these numbers. Um, and what it really does for you is it allows an additional revenue at the cost of insurance companies. Um, insurance companies can help to bring in revenue by paying a higher fee that they are now required by the state of Arkansas to pay. And now keeping in mind, you know, you do have certain percentage of private pay accounts uh under 10% of your accounts are private pay that um would see these fees. We also have um a you know a potential for adding a private pay discount if needed um if we were to raise the rates. But what uh what we

really have to do is just decide, you know, is it time for a rate increase? Do we is now the time? And what at what rate? Um, like I said, I am seeing across the country actually these much higher rates for ambulance for the ambulance industry. I've had several of my own clients come in and say, "Okay, we're doubling our rates. Take them up." You know, everyone it's it has been approved. Why? Because it's on the back of the insurance company primarily. are. Yeah. Again, some of our citizens or some of our um community will see a little bit higher mostly if they have a high deductible. If you've got a an insurance with a high deductible plan um in some cases then um if your bill is applied to the deductible then you will be you will receive that bill for it. Um but um once your deductible is met and your co-pays are met, your insurance companies are um required. Um if you look at this page here um and this one here is the one that I kind of just typed up and this is something we kind of just uh put together, but it shows on here what are the Medicare allowed rates and what would 325% of that be? 325% being what is um passed by the state. Um and for your ALS emergency and for everything that I'm looking at on all of these primarily your um services are build at ALS emergency or BLS emergency, basic life support or advanced life support. Um so I am primarily looking at those numbers. Um the ALS emergency right now Medicare fee schedule $4975

if you see that on this sheet. Um basically $500 $325% of that would bring that rate up to $1615. If you look over at this other sheet over here, you're going to see PARDMS is already at $1,600. Let's see. Papford EMS $1,600. We saw it earlier. What's that? 1650. Okay. And Central EMS is right at 1600. And that is in the green. A0427 is ALS emergency. Um 80% of what we build for you is ALS emergency. So that's why I'm focused on those numbers. you've we've got several different levels of care that we build for ALS2 for your um patients that need um you know they need life sustaining you know they may they may be coded something like that uh three or more drugs um but and all the different levels of care but that is the one I'm I'm looking at primarily mileage rate also um your mileage rate is at $15 a mile uh it was that prior to the last rate increase because your la your last rate increase did not in um increase the mileage, but um the mileage rate would be at $30 a mile. And um I believe you will find that to be what the other agencies are doing as well. So, we're kind of seeing it happen across the board across the country. Um why um well, our costs keep going up. insurance companies are now being required to to um pay your fees instead of putting it on the backs of your community and uh there is a place to to capture revenue.

I know you mentioned private pay residents which it's self-pay, correct? Yes, self-pay. Um, so if we did raise rates, how can we guarantee that they wouldn't have the impact because they'd be the most precious people we need to protect on that?

Yes. And you know, with that, when we bill them out very often, we bill them out self-pay, but they call us with insurance, you know, or they or they become eligible for Medicaid because the hospital helps to get them eligible for Medicaid. So mo many of them are not they start off self-pay but they don't end up being self-pay. But those that are actually interested in paying their bill, they can contact us. We are we've talked about and we've already got a discount policy in place. Um but we can actually even grow on that which is what our other clients have done. they have done up to 30 or 40% discount for a true private pay patient and um and uh we've got some sample policies for that whether it be um on a dis on a payment plan because what we're seeing is a lot more payment plans things like that you know so but 80% keeping in mind 80% of all of your patients are Medicare or Medicaid um or or VA on here and those 80% are not going to be impacted by a rate increase at all. The you have 20% of your patients that are commercial insurance or private pay. Those are the ones that are going to see they that that they are the ones that are going the rate the me the commercial insurance is going to be um the ones that's going to be where you capture your revenue for that. But um those are the only accounts and that's why I put on here anticipated revenue um for I believe you had just over 400 calls

um for um for 2025 that would have been commercial insurance. And if we had the new rate increased to the 325%, those 425 calls would actually bring back a estimated revenue of about $311,000. Um, and the 80% are subject to Medicare fee schedule only. So what that means is we adjust off um the disallowed for Medicare and Medicaid. We cannot we cannot charge anything more than what Medicare and Medicaid says to the patient. Um Medicare says the allowed amount is $500. Um we adjust off if it's 2,000 just off 1500 and um and that's and that's what it is. So,

uhhuh. What does it mean on the listing here? It has insurance. Then it has another listing that's insurance secondary. Um, that is how our system posts. Sometimes our system will post some of the insurance supplements like AARP um or equitable life for some of those supplemental plans to Medicare as an insurance supplement. secondary insurance or if you and your spouse both work and each have insurance plans, right? You get a secondary insurance plan that way as well. Yeah.

Yeah. That's that is what that is. But and and like I said, um that is um a you know the this is how things are posted with a credit code. This is not actually the list of payer mix but it we looked at the payer mix list and it in the percentages and that's what I'm looking at more than anything when I'm looking at this list is I'm looking at the percentages and the percentages are very much the same. So here and actually you know it shows 28% of Medicaid managed care oh I'm sorry Medicare that's that was exactly the same. So whether it be whether I looked at whether I was looking at actual revenue or whether I was looking at um primary payer the na the numbers came back pretty close.

The only question I have on this sheet just so I'm understanding what's highlighted in yellow here. Yes. I'm not quite sure is is that the average or or what is what is that telling us? This is Yeah. Go ahead. So go ahead. So this 2025 man's fee schedule. What we're looking at is basically what the services are are charging. Don't look at that proposed rate. This is Bentonville was looking at changing their rates last year. So that's what you're looking at there. They just sent that out to us so we'd have an idea of what's what cities are paying what services were paying or charging for services. So they'll look at the that's not okay. I apologize for that.

That that's fine. No, that's not ours. This was a study done by the So this is this came from Bentonville. That's correct. Came from Bentonville. So what we're looking at is just basically the the charges for Belvis to Bentonville central neco. This is what Bentonville is saying. We propose our rates to go to this last year. I don't know what they did. Okay. And that's is Rogers bracketed out for a reason or what about it? Well, I mean it's bracketed. It's bracketed. I mean, it's it's boxed. Well, Rogers had their own. There was another another form on there that Rogers had something totally different that they probably excluded from that.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure what I mean. The main ones as of right now that we know of for sure, like Central EMS, we know that their ALS2 is $2,300. That's basically what they charge for that. And their ALS1, what we're looking at comparing to ours is the same amount, 1,600. So, those are the numbers we're looking at. I apologize for that. No, that's okay.

Was a study The data was collected by the B fire department because they're looking at changing their rates, but they're kind of waiting on to see what Bella Vista is going to do before they move forward with their tenants. So, that's what I hear. Well, it almost looks like all the private people went right to the max and the public has the public people like us who've maybe been a little slower to respond so far and and we could raise our rates without going to three and a quarter times. I mean, we could make it anything between what it is and the max. That's correct. Really?

Yes. So yeah, you can see that a lot of your municipalities in here have not have not really raised that much as of right now. So and these are current as of 2025 for the most part other than what Springdale end up doing back in October. Um which they basically doubled their rates across the board. And then um I believe that maybe Pford has changed their number since then since this has went out. So, but everything else the same. So,

Chief or Bonnie, good to see you, Bonnie. I've never met you in person, but I've worked with you in the past. I'm familiar with these billing practices mostly, at least a lot of the other agencies, but not ours. What is our self-pay billing practice currently? We're sending people to collections or Yes, we are. We do. That's correct.

Our Yes. The billing the billing practice right now for self-pay is they get their initial bill, they get a pass due bill. actually um before they get an initial bill, we've within the last year implemented uh texting and email. So um because we're finding out that the much younger generation, they don't look at their mail and the much older generation, they um want everything in the mail. So um Oh, sorry. Uh yes. Yes. So, um, we're kind of in a place where we're trying to take care of everybody, but they do they get a text message, they get an invoice, they get a past due invoice, they will get a final notice invoice, and then um, we do a final review to see if there's any possibility that they've been made eligible for Medicaid or any other insurance that we can that we can locate and then they will go to collection.

Okay. Thank you for that. That's my only concern with this. Otherwise, I'm I'm a huge supporter of this. Our prices are too low. I know what it costs to to run someone to the hospital in an emergency situation. I know about the equipment and the medications that they're all expensive. The fuel's going up. So, I support this. I would like to see some protection for those people and our community is pretty uh fortunate that that is a very small number of people that aren't protected with insurance probably, but right. So, I would just maybe to have something for that something to keep them I just want to add to that with um as Bonnie was saying with that policy some sort of discount. I think one of those goes up to 35%.

Yeah, it can be uh some of them up to 40% if that's what we if that's what we opt for. You know, we have different uh we you know, choices on that um as well. just like whether you want to go up to 325 on 325% on the rate. But um you know right now the most common is is a 30% private pay discount. Um and so um yes and we do payment we set up payment plans for them and you know these these types of things. Uh Larry,

sounds like we're we're doing a lot of plucking out of the air, picking a cherry here and an apple there. Uh I come from the utility industry and uh deal with a lot of rates at times um water and sewer rates and we have to justify it before the public service commission. Yes.

So my question to you is what's the cost of our services to do this? In other words, take any one of these things and uh run through what the cost of that service is. What's the cost of our operation? First of all, we have six ambulances. I assume that we run six of them regularly or there's five on the line and one spare. Uh so we have five operational and one in the background. So do we staff for six or we staff for five? We staff for We could staff for six. We have staff for six.

Yeah. You got to remember all of my personnel are firefighter EMTs or paramedics. So the cost of the cost of doing business is all the personal I have on ship. Everybody I have on the department because either one any one of them can get in that ambulance.

Okay. So so so then the next question is what is the cost of our ambulance operation for a year? And and and I know that's a difficult question, but it's a fair question. If if our ambulance cost for the year warrants increasing the rates to uh $5,000 a trip, then that's what we need to try and do, but we may not be able to because it it it's just outrageous. It may be only $1,000 for a year. There is a um

so so what is the I I'd like to see some actual costs for that segment of our operation. So if we have a driver and and an attendant on an ambulance is that typically how that goes? That's correct. Okay. So we can figure how many trips we have in a year. And so the time involved in that, we can create some some costs because all of your fire crew that's on duty at a given station, any of them are qualified to go, but you only take as many as you have ambulances for. So if you have six people at a station, two of them need to go in that ambulance, right? If you have two ambulances, you'd have four that are committed.

Could be could be more than that on certain calls. More than two. could be

when it when it comes to your cost. Um there was uh CMS, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services required um all ambulance services to report cost um and and and also gave instructions on fire department to help them be able to separate what percentage of their city administration um was um added into the cost so forth. So, you're absolutely right. Cost and and I put that as this like one of the second paragraphs on here is that when increasing your rates, cost should be one of your biggest factors. And you're you're you're absolutely right.

And and so what so so my real answer my real question is what is the cost?

What is the cost? And if you see um there are several seminars out there um and or actually um I should say articles that from the industry leaders that can tell what co that can give you an idea of what the costs are because everybody had to report them back. Of course, municipalities, especially fire, um city fire, stuff like had the highest cost um nation, you know, um over private, you know. Um but, uh the hardest part about it is has been is being able to figure out well, what percentage of my city administration um and and all of the cost of that is um also tied in with my ambulance cost. Um so um but yeah and it is very timeintensive um work to be able to get to the cost but there are several guidelines out there that can be that can be helpful in that

sh I just wanted to chime in on your subject Larry actually. So what I believe I hear you say is that there's um it can be really difficult and um you would have to have specific assumptions in place in order to provide a true cost to serve. But there are some industry standards that you might be able to apply to our situation uh rather than us create a custom set of assumptions to assign cost. Okay. And you'll be able to share those.

Yes. And yeah, there um yeah, there there are widely out there and actually they're just now coming back with um after several years of reviewing cost um nationwide for all EMS agencies, they're just now coming back with um what is the results of everybody putting out their cost, you know. Um so uh yeah the but the numbers are the numbers are now available uh for the first time ever actually and and so the the difference really in in in the cost overheads are different in different areas because of the cost of facilities right

utility cost to support those labor costs are another big factor so if you're in a metropolitan area you're going to have a higher cost than if you live out in Podunk where you have less employment and lower wages. Um and and so uh I appreciate all of that, but the reality is what are what are the costs, right? And and can you get those for us?

Yeah. And I cannot get those for you be I can give you resources to be able to to be able to pull that information, but all that information has to come from your own finance department as far as what what are they paying out? what what um you know because it it looks at everything, your payroll, your um your administrative cost, your your building maintenance, all of it.

You have to keep in mind, too, there might be a ALS1 call that's built at the $825, but it was a car wreck and they had to send a fire truck with rescue equipment with four firefighters to, you know, extricate the victim from the car and that's not really included in the cost. And then you might have to give that person more medications than you gave the last person on ALS1. So they're really a sliding schedule on the cost there. It's but I I can I I can appreciate that uh Travis um that each call is kind of unique. Mhm.

In its own way. Uh I relate that also to utilities where we have to define the cost for putting in a new meter um changing out a meter, replacing a service line, charging the customer for the first first connection. Uh so there's a lot of things that have to be looked at individually and you take averages and sometimes you take an high average right not a low average. So, so the question is uh can we justify any of these increases and how much?

Right. Right. That is Yes. Exactly. And and that's and you can you you would have to be able we could give you resources and then it would have to be done within your finance department to review to review it. For sure. and and then you know and and certainly you know um please know that the um you know the law that was put into effect was there to assist ambulance services to help them um with the cost to help them have another avenue of revenue but you'd certainly want to make sure you you have an idea you know because you don't want to just raise them just because Anna

um thank you so my biggest concern is you you explained early on who would be responsible for paying it and and in most cases it would be the insurance companies, right? And so I I aligned to that. What I want to understand though is for for each different group, could you just explain one more time um which so if we're on the first page Yes. and all those payment description types. So, who can be p build at the higher price and who and then what percentage of residents might have to foot the bill but could be at a discount.

Uh, and yes, on the first page and this is actually a revenue report and it's very similar but like the and I'm looking at the percentage column all the way out to the edge. Okay. Um the ones that is the ones the one that is important is your your insurance which is at 26%. Um that is the one that is going to be impacted by the by that the $369,000 there with insurance. Those are the ones that's going to see you're going to see come up. That's private that's private insurance. Private private insurance. Private health insurance.

Yes. Private health insurance. um your your Blue Cross and United Healthcare and so forth. Um now if you look at the rest of them, your insurance secondary is um not terribly relevant um because it's your secondary insurance, but you've got your Medicaid is a is fee schedule. So they are not impacted by by the increase. Uh Medicaid managed care also not impacted by a rate increase. the um Medicare which is at 28% which is your higher number on here not impacted by a rate increase and neither are Medicare advantage. Um the private payment on here is the ones that would potentially be but again most of these come back around to end up having insurance. This actually represents how much money you have collected from patients on this one. your private pay. Um on here is your self-pay. Last year we actually had 132 calls that were private pay and that is as of today because they could very well find insurance tomorrow because this includes December dates of service and that's where most of these are at November December. But and then your veterans administration right now veterans administration is paying what you charge. So if your rate does go up, your veterans administration does pay um that according to that rate. So and and like I said, I'm uh you know, definitely appreciate your close careful consideration in that. So, so the rates that are going to be changed would be the last one, the veterans

and the private

the um the veterans. What actually does happen, just so you understand, is your rate at let's say $800 goes up to $1,600. If that's the number we that is decided on, the $1,600 is build out on all of your calls. Okay. Um then Medicare comes in when they pay and they say, "Oh, well, we don't we don't we don't allow 1,600. We have to disallow uh a portion of that." And so they they take it off on the backside with it in what we call an adjustment. So it is adjusted off. So the the rate is is going to be on all of the accounts, but it is adjusted. Medicaid patients, they don't ever get a bill, but the rate goes out the same. Medicaid pays according to their fee schedule and the rest gets adjusted off. So that's that's what it looks like.

So when you say a fee, uh, which was the Medicaid, Medicaid managed care, Medicare, Medicare advantage, um, and even the veterans. Well, that um so those four have their own schedule of rates. They have a fee that they allow. Yes. Now, is that rate adjusted by urban area or geographic location in the US?

Yes. Um well, yeah, geographical practice cost index is a factor for Medicare rates. And so, um when you when you get into it, it gets really really complicated. But yes, there is a separate fee schedule. Now, Arkansas Medicaid has one fee schedule for the entire state for ambulance service, and it's a different fee schedule for each different level of care. Again, like I said on this piece of paper, what is in green is the what will you bill the most of. Um, but we do bill a certain percentage of some of the others, but there's a different fee schedule. So, can you provide us with the schedule of rates for those four fixed fees? Yes. For this area? Yes. Yes. as far as the fee schedule. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

And so is that going to be the green line in here or this is No, it's actually the the Medicare fee schedule when I um on this page here on the back I put down what is Medicare allowed rate which is Medicare's fee schedule. So where you see Medicare allowed rate that on this page in the middle is your current Medicare allowed rates. Now, is that the Medicare and Medicaid? Medicaid is lower. Medicaid is lower. So, we need the rates for all of those. We need the rates for all four of them that are fixed. You give us an example here, but this is only one of the fixed fees that you're basically.

This is only Medicare. You've got Medicare and Medicaid. And we need all four of the rates. We need all four of what the rates are. There are there are no other fee schedules for um there's VA doesn't have a fee schedule. The VA does not. Correct. No. But that one's not on your list of fixed fees. The Medicare I see where the confusion is. I'm sorry. The Medicare and Medicare Advantage are basically the same thing. Um one of them is government Medicare and the other is private Medicare. United Health Humanana. So, the rates are the same for those, too. Yes. Yes. All right. But we'd like to know what it is.

Yep. Okay. And that's on this back page. Yep. And where where is it on the back page? Where it says Medicare allowed rates on this page here. Medicaid. And the Medicaid rates, I don't have I don't I did not give you any of the Medicaid rates. And Medicaid represents about 10%. Not. And actually in your area, I'm looking here, Medicaid is about 5% of your call volume. So Medicaid is a very low number for Northwest Arkansas, but we'd like to know what the rate is. Yeah, exactly.

Okay. Uh Larry, I think the point of uh the chief's presentation is that if you're deciding to increase the rate, you need to f you can focus on the number the certain people it's going to apply to and figure out how much money you're going to get out of this change. Exactly. Right. But uh you know, obsessing about the Medicare rate, it's like any doctor bill you get. Oh, it's $1,600. Oh, we're paying $8.25. Mr. Doctor, you can you blabber about whatever you want. We're paying $8.25. So, sitting around studying Medicare rate strikes me as a little bit of a waste of time.

Well, we're not and we're not asking for we're not doing any of this anytime soon. This is all Yes, we're bringing this up. I want to get this in front of council ahead of time without throwing in front of you saying this what I'd like to do. That's why it's a discussion item. Chief felt it was a big deal. Yeah. Per perhaps if we could do our analysis on our own time and and send our questions via email. That that might be nice. Yes. Just let me know any questions you have. Let us know or let me and I'll get them to Bonnie if I can't answer them. So is this is this a food for thought? Get it out. This is something we need to do. This is something that we can do. What do we want to do? So yeah.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Just one more thing I wanted to mention. I asked you, this is the state legislature passed this that you can charge 3.25 times Medicare. So I asked the chief, well, how did this come about? Well, all the private ambulances lobbyed the state legislature. That's where it came from. So because I couldn't figure out exactly what their motivation was, you know. Anyway, so now we'll go back to Thank you very much, Bonnie. Appreciate it very much.

U we can go back to the agenda. Now the next item is B ordinance amending ordinance number 2021-23 to modify and set new development impact fees and for other purposes. And I think you all have uh in the packet uh the proposal of what the impact fees would be. And also of course we had a presentation by Ben Griffin of Tishler Bice. If somebody has a real technical question, I may be able to get Carson Bice on phone and put him on speaker. to do that on our own. Travis,

uh, I just have one thing to add to this that I learned since the last meeting, and I was discouraged by learning this, but, um, the POA also charges $1,500 impact fee for every new house that's being built. So, if we were to do the increase that was proposed, we I I believe we'd be the highest impact fee in Northwest Arkansas. So, I don't know if there's a way to work with the POA. They do one year, we do one year or if we could offset it somehow. Just just an idea. I think it is that on the water, you mean? Is that what it is? Is all water? Yeah. So, I think other cities charge impact fees for water, too. Yeah. And sewer.

Yeah, we we got the list of the impact fees. Yeah, we did have I I do think if you took our proposed impact fee and added the water, we wouldn't be the highest. There several be a bit higher than that. I have to look at the list here real quick. Um single family residential units that would make us 3,700 if you count the POA part. Uh Rogers is 6,400. Springdale's 5,866. Bentonville's 3045.

How do we get a copy of that? Uh, this was in the uh packet that Ben Griffin gave, but I could get you a copy of it of this page. Appreciate that. Thank you. But point well taken. It does make a difference. I mean, because people are faced with whatever the PA is doing as well. Any other comments?

I I guess the only other comment that I have would be that we need a an not an impact fee, but a a fee for the damage that new construction is causing to our streets. And uh um and when I say that uh I I look at driving down my own street and on the way in the road is in more severe condition than the lanes going out of the subdivision. uh and that has to be because of the vehicles coming in are loaded with construction materials and causing the deterioration on the inbound street. uh when they go out they are empty and so they have less of an impact and so I think we need to need to seriously think about some kind of a a fee in lie of impact fee uh but a fee for construction whether it's a home um uh an apartment building a a new business uh for the impact that that transportation of materials to the site impacts our streets and we're starting to see in many areas the severity of that effect and in a couple isolated areas where they've torn up the whole culde-sac. So Shay,

I just want to say I agree with council member Wilms and he might remember last month I stopped just short of uh exasperating the entire room with my line of questioning around that and um I felt like based on the answers that we had done all the exploration possible to see if that could be done and it cannot. So, just wanted to say I I absolutely echo your concerns, but I'm I'm I believe we've explored every conceivable avenue to do so and that it's unfortunately not possible. Uh Jason, impact fees have not been determined to be possible, but it's not a fee in lie of an impact fee. It's fee in lie of a development charge.

No, a fee in lie of a development improvement. Okay. public development improvement. So what so it's a different type of fee but it's not in lie of an impact fee. I missed

it pract it practically speak there's a real practical common sense way reason that you think about these together because you're thinking about we get street damage number one and number two we have a street that needs to be built and those things happen as it relates to someone building a house or building a a building. And so um but the impact fee has to to be it it for the reasons stated in the study and for and the multitude of times he's explained it. I can't go back over it but but it it's not been determined to qualify pursuant to our statute

and if there statutory changes to that it we could potentially do something along those lines. It's not allowed from maintenance. And so what we're looking at are enhanced maintenance issues really that are because of new development. And maintenance for us also includes maybe putting asphalt having to improve a a dirt path to asphalt or something, but it's still a city street because it was dedicated to the public years ago. So there are fees in lie of development improvement, public development improvements that you might be able to do that have to be proportional to the development and have a connection to that development. So it would be very limited. You it's not like you could require someone to build a pave the street a mile out to their house. You're talking about potentially making roadside improvements to the street in front of their home or paying a fee in lie of doing that. potentially only half the street because then you've got the other side of the street that a future builder might need to do. Um those are the those are the sorts of things that you could potentially have a fee in L or first of all you've got to require the builder to make the improvement. So we would have to have a requirement that the people would have to build the street out or pay a fee in L. We don't have that requirement. So there would have to be some policy choices on that as well. So these are things you can do but it's not impact fee though I I understand why as a as a common sense matter it tends to come up at the same time

anybody else I will mention about the impact fee in general if you'll notice in Tishler Vice's uh recital at the beginning of it they point out that if you don't do the impact fee You either get the money somewhere else and you don't do whatever it is the impact fee was going to cover, meaning build the new fire station or buy the new fire truck or whatever. And somewhere else is the taxpayers of course. So really becomes a question of you know I do think it's important to be fair to everybody be fair to builders and and entrepreneurs and be fair to the taxpayers but it becomes a question of what's fair who should pay what and the theory behind the Tishler Bice study is this is the amount you can charge and be fair to to the builders and Uh but you know like Travis says you have a fee here, fee here, fee there and pretty soon it's pretty daunting uh all the things you have to pay when you're an entrepreneur. So So but that's the whole uh theory behind it. And if you look at some of the things are on the list, you think, well, that's something we're gonna need to do at some point one way or another, like get another uh fire truck or uh you know, expand here and there. So, it's a challenge. Larry,

I I I have two more questions or maybe three, but two more for sure. Uh, one is, can we put a cost of living escalator cause on the rates that we would adopt? I know of no way to do that. I mean, the rates have to be set based on a study. That's what we have the study for. The study you you periodically review those rates and that's how inflationary costs get built in to increase fees in the future, but it's not an automatic.

So, so, so do we know if Tishler Bice has done that anywhere? Uh, put in a cost of living increase annually at indexes. I need to interject. It happens I was on the phone with Carson Bice today asking him questions about a lot of different things and he did mention that some people some cities do put an escalator clause in there for the CPI or whatever. I personally I'm a little reluctant to do that particularly since you can come back every few years and do something about it anyway. I mean, we did this five years ago and you can look at how things have changed and think, Amy, we should go back. So, it seems like that I guess some cities do it that way, but it seems like the escalator isn't as pressing a matter as it might be. That's just my opinion, though.

Well, it's a cost to do the study to justify it. So, if the escalator is possible, that might be a way to move us forward as time goes on. uh reflecting the cost of doing business. So yeah. Well, and uh you have to get the new council, whoever they might be, to agree to it also. So it avoids that problem, I suppose. But

but so there's pros and cons to that anyway. But what was your second one? You said you had a couple of things. The second one is is the uh um is whether or not all of the projects that we see listed in here are viable in the window the time frame that the study looks at. So I don't know if this is a long-term study if it's a 10-year study uh horizon if that's the case. they do seem to show 10 years out with some of the costs and uh items uh in many of the tables they show a 10-year window. Um so in that case um the assumption might be um that the cost of doing the construction projects or doing the improvements they identify with each of the four areas would increase in cost over that time frame. And so, uh, these these costs don't show any increases even though they're looking out 10 years. And then the question would be, are all of the projects viable? Uh, realistically, what happens if we remove one or two of them uh from the list? Uh because it's beyond a time frame that we can predict as an example. Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, he did use a 10year time frame and as a reminder, I think a lot of you probably remember this. The rule is after you get the money, you have to spend it in seven years. So when I looked at the whole thing, what I was particularly concerned about is uh making sure we could spend what we get

in seven years because if you don't, you have to uh give it back, which would be very it would be very difficult doing the calculations and all that. So, uh, Kim Hall and I actually have talked about this quite a bit the last week or two because there are some prices in there and you start to think, well, we're doing construction four years from now. It's not going to be this price. In a way, I'd rather be a little lower personally just because I want to make darn sure I could spend it in seven years, you know, and if if some of the prices are are a little too low, well, maybe that's okay. You know, I I don't also you you're uh but you're right. When you start going at a longer timeline, you start to think uh different mayors, different council. You don't want to, you know, put too much pressure on people or commit them to all kinds of different things eight years from now. But there is a lot of planning way ahead in city business. on the other hand, you know, to go to these uh regional meetings and uh the mayor's job is a lot more regional than the other jobs I've found. I mean, they're making road plans for the year 2050 and things like that. I mean, they're really starting to think much more long term and and so you really are kind of committing to things for people uh a long time ago. I remember years ago there was a a a person over at the sheriff's department who was somewhat flamboyant and uh build a a big gigantic jail and people thought, "Oh my gosh, this this is really way too big. Now it's uh uh full." And it looked like he was

thinking properly at the time he built it. So, especially being in a growing area like we are anybody else. Okay. So, anyway, the uh impact fees will be on uh first reading next week and uh something you can all give some thought to. Then nothing else. C ordinance is waving the requirement of formal competitive bidding authorizing a contract with Superior Automotive Group and a total amount not to exceed $60,000 for the purchase of a 2026 Ford Transit van for use by the police. Uh Chief Graves,

we're good.

Okay. Okay. Um, let me give a little background here. So, so um, there's a couple things happening here in in this in this request. First of all, that the the police department is very IThe heavy. So, probably about just over 50% of what it does for the city, they do for the police department both in this building and externally with our communication system. So, we've always provided them with a vehicle or provided a vehicle that they could use of ours. And so, in the past, they've used a lesso van of ours and they've used that for years. uh to do to do the work they do for us and and out in the field and stuff to respond for different things that we need. Uh that that van is mechanically now unsound and it really doesn't meet the needs with with all the different things that we're doing in the I with with with our department it. So uh I I I I'm requesting that we we get it we're going to purchase a new van for the police department to use for IT purposes. It will use it because they're the ones that do the work for us. Um, when we first started looking at this, um, we worked with the IT department to see what specific needs they had now and into the future, especially since we're putting these new radio towers out and there's going to be some work. They're going to be taking over a lot of the work with those towers that currently the fire department does and some of and so they'll be they'll have some additional work in the field for that. So, working with them, uh, none of the then when we started looking for a van for them to use, we went to the 2026 the Arkansas state bid sheet and none of those vans met their purposes. Okay. Uh, so then we checked uh with with uh our current vendor that we use for all of our vehicles. We're familiar with them and they actually had exactly what we needed uh in stock uh and and we we worked with IT department. They said that would meet all their needs. And so what we're what I'm requesting here is for one not to go and use the state bid because nothing is there. Okay? And then I'm asking for a bid waiver because if if I wait to try to get this van that's currently in stock uh at Superior

Automotive in Sylum Springs, we'll likely lose it. And I really have no reason to believe that another vendor would have this vehicle sitting in there waiting for us. And so I think time time is of the essence. Um then the money is already is going to be available in in the the um the new uh bond package that went out. Uh uh that's that's where the money is going to be procured from and I think that'll be available by the end of this month. And so that that money will be used to purchase this vehicle. I have uh uh director mole here from the IT department. If you have some questions reference to specific needs of the van and why we had to go to that type of van, he's he's more than happy to answer those questions. But do you have anything further reference what I've said? Uh Shay,

I just wanted to say in my uh private line of work, I know that uh Sprinter vans are incredibly difficult to get and that there is a shortage of them. So, I did just want to add that to uh to your narration. Thank you. Anything else reference what I've said or any specifics on the van that we need to get? Now, the the the number that you have here, Chief, is that uh fully equipped and ready to go with just putting our materials into it? Yeah, the van we looked at is outfitted with shelving and it's ready to go. Yeah,

it has stuff in it. So, it's a style of vehicle that you use. Yeah. Or would you would use Yeah. So, it's it's turnkey the way it's sitting. So we don't have to do any addition like we would a squad car. Now we might put some vehicle markings on it or something like that, but that's about the extent of it. Uh Wendy, is there a desire for us to go third and final on this? Is the desire to go to third and final at this reading? Correct. So we can get it done quickly. And then Jason, are we a if we do third and final, are we able to consent agenda this or is it because a ordinance we can't? I'm sorry. Are we able to put this on the consent agenda?

No, you can't put an ordinance on consent. Perfect. Thank you. Is this an ordinance or a resolution? It's an ordinance. Yeah, ordinance. Okay. Is that it? Okay, I think we set. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next one. D is an ordinance prohibiting camping and vehicle habitation on certain public property, providing definitions, establishing enforcement procedures, providing exemptions, providing penalties, and for other purposes. And this was Travis Hart.

Yeah, to the best of my knowledge, there's nothing in place that would allow the city to prevent this from happening. I know in some of the other cities and folks that I've talked to there, they've seen an increase in this type of camping, if you will. Um, and here in Bella Vista, I think u the city property is really the only place they could do that right now because if they're not on the business, then they're on, you know, the membership or the POA's property and they have the right to, you know, tell them they can't sleep there if they're not, you know, invited or whatever. Um, and just with the growth in our population and the increase in the tourism that I I think we all should anticipate having happen here in our region, I just thought this would be a good time to see the council's thoughts on that. So,

I have a thought. Great. I'd like to uh ask the chief um what his experience has been with uh people camping. Um, you know, I think it's politics for the sake of politics myself. Um, I think you could probably explain. Sure. Sure. Easily.

Um, so I went back when I saw this ordinance and I I I apologize. I believe a council member asked me to pull these numbers. I can't remember exact. Okay. Thank you. I I apologize. I don't remember who asked. Um, to sort of pull sort of this sort of stuff that's happened in the city. camping on cars, sleeping in cars, camping. So, I had my folks go back and and pull two years. We went from I believe mid 2023 to mid 2025 and we came up with 10 incences. Now, that might not be fully inclusive, but I think that's fairly is going to is going to capture everything. And most of it would happen uh at different trail heads and it was usually people that were maybe, you know, we go up there and talk with them. Hey, you know, you can't sleep here kind of thing. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just we we biked all day. they were going to bite tomorrow and so they would try to camp there overnight. Um, so you know, if you're asking me if if I think this is a big problem, I don't think it's a big problem because it's really never come on our radar. We do get a few complaints in the past. We've had a complaint of of some folks uh camping out in the woods by some of the the bike trails, but that was some some homeless type folks who went out and told them they couldn't camp there. So, in my experience in Bella Vista, we're a little unique and I think council member Harp hit on this a little bit in that there's not a lot of public property when a public parks have a public square. Um, everything's private. Okay? Either either Cooper owns it, the POA owns it, private citizens own it, or now Blue Crane owns it. And so, we've been we've had a lot of luck in the past. If we have problems, we have an agreement with the POA. They allow us. They don't want people camping on their property and things like that. So, we've had good luck with the organizations that own all the private property that if we have problems like that and we can't get people to cooperate and leave. We have no problem getting these other organizations to say, "Yeah, we don't want them there." And we're able to move them along, otherwise they'd be arrested for trespassing. So, um, as far as just people camping out, we haven't really experienced a lot of that. I'm not say

it'll never happen, but I believe, you know, a lot of the things so far we I guess what I'll say is we haven't had difficulty resolving this issue if it's been if it's come to our attention in the past. I ask another question. Have Have you had any calls from citizens in regard like like complaints of people parking on streets or

Well, yeah. I mean I mean most of the the the calls I'm talking about the 10 we've had in the last couple years when I looked up it they were mostly citizens calling and saying hey somebody's sleeping at uh like Bear Hollow Trail Head, you know, or somebody's sleeping in their car. So So they do usually come from citizens calling us. Um you know on the streets there's already an ordinance where you can't park on the streets overnight. So that'd be easy to resolve. So, when we get people saying people are parking overnight, but I don't recall ever getting, you know, people sleeping in their cars overnight except for maybe at the um at the visitor center along 71. There are sometimes people sleep there, but again, you know, if somebody's traveling across country and we get them sleeping in the visiting center, we'd probably talk with them. We'd probably let them sleep there because, you know, we don't want people driving on and crashing their cars. And so, a lot of it just depends on who we come in contact with. That usually that is usually would be the case. But besides that, um we do get the complaints come from citizens, but but uh but not at a volume that really has come across my radar.

Well, I mean, do you feel like the laws that we currently have in place uh kind of take care of Well, yeah, I can just tell you that we I I have not run across my officers telling me they have a difficult time um resolving issues like this that we've come across thus far. and and most of the those interactions have been pleasant. I mean, just like move along and

yeah, like I mentioned, all the property is almost all private property and so we already have uh good uh arrangements or good um working relationships with entities that own the property. If Allens wants to let someone sleep in their parking lot, then Allen will let them do it. If they don't, they'll tell us, "Yeah, we want them to move along." And so, so uh there's laws on the books for parking on the street passed, you know, overnight. So, you can't do that. So, so we haven't had a problem resolving these issues when they've come across our desk.

Okay. Thanks. And and I, if I may add, I'm sorry because I wouldn't be supportive of anything like this. I mean, if somebody's having a bad day and needs to park and falls asleep on the shoulder and we try to cite them for a citation just to get them in front of a judge and, you know, just make their bad day worse. Um, I mean, I think if if if everything that you've encountered since you've been chief has been pretty much a baseline zero. I I again politics for the sake of politics.

Yeah. Even even when we have when we have ordinances, laws in the books, I mean we we use discretion, you know, if somebody is stuck because their car is broken, we're not going to, you know, lower the hammer on them. We're going to hopefully get them some help and get them on their way if if if it's necessary because people are uncooperative. they're just not moving along eventually, then yeah, we would use something to do that. But I wouldn't use an ordinance in that capacity anyways. Okay. Thanks, Shay. Just so um everyone who's listening might not be or could be aligned, uh I've noticed the average Bella Vista citizen isn't always aware of our three-legged stool. And so, if you could just clarify or quickly run through the amount of public property that the city of Bella Vista owns, I think that would also really help folks understand what's being proposed

here. I'm not saying I have it all-encompassing, but I'd say, you know, the property that this department and the streets department sits on, the property city hall sits on, all the property the fire stations sit on, public roadways. Well, the roadways, I mean, obviously the roadways, and then I guess the the trail system a few feet on either side of the trail system. That's a license, but still privately owned, but we have public license on that. So, I mean, it's very limited in that in that regard. So, we don't have a problem with people camping on our properties because there's not much property to camp on because they don't exist. Okay. Thank you, Wendy.

Um, this does feel maybe unnecessary in that we already have rules and regulations in place to enforce this. Um, and kind of bringing it back to Jim Waznjak when he was on the council regarding the short-term rental ordinances we had. um we had all these laws in place already and this feels like an extra regulation that we probably don't need to have when we already have measures in place to take care of this. So is that a question or that's a statement? Okay. I I have a question, Chief. Sure. So what Thank you, mayor. What what ordinance or what law could you enforce if I decided to pitch a tent at behind the fire station tonight

on the on the fire station property? Yes, that's city owned property. With city owned property. So the fire, you know, whoever was in charge of that station at the time, whatever deputy chief or whoever was out there, the battalion chief would probably call the police department and they may ask you to move along. If you said no, they call us. We come and say you need to move along. You said no, then we could arrest you for trespassing. Okay.

Well, let let me That's a unique circumstance. You're talking about city owned property u with a fire station on it. So, it would be a little more complicated than that. Um, I'm not saying that we could not do that, but I think we would need to at least impose some sort of a a rule against it before you I don't know that we have a rule against No one's ever tried to do it. So, I I can't imagine somebody pitching a tent on the in the grass in front of the fire station. But, um, if you all called me about that, I'd say, "Well, we need to hang on a minute."

Sure. I mean, you know, of course, I understand what you're saying, uh, Jason. I mean, technically, it's city property. Technically, you know, whoever is a steward over city property, and if we want, then, but I understand what Jason's saying. We call him first, but that would be something we could do if we had that sort of issue. But that's that's never come across before, and I think that's a unique situation. Look, I I'm not I don't want to take a side here to me either way. I'm just I'm being asked a question. I've never run across a problem in the Bella Vista where we didn't have some capacity, either a law or an agreement with property owners to to move people along or to to revenue a situation. That's all I'm saying. We're we're different from most cities because we have no public parks.

I would say that makes us very unique and I personally kind of like that as chief of police because it's very helpful. A positive thing. So speaking of that, are the So the trail heads technically are they owned by the POA or POA property?

I think there are various degrees of circumstances. I think some most of them are in the right of way. I think um I know Taylor would probably know. She's not here, but uh we we do have some we did some things with some of the trail heads. I we haven't done them all, but I think a lot of them are in public rideway. uh but some of them may not be c can I can I add on look I would have to say that we've never run across as far as I know and I have to ask my my officers every single one of them but I've never run across a circumstance has been brought to my attention where like anybody we catch sleeping somewhere is usually just somebody who was biking all day long and they're going to camp out and they're going to bike in the morning. It's never been somebody who we may consider as somebody I'm concerned about in the community. Like maybe they're traveling through and they got a bunch of warrants and they're going to do some burglaries. I mean, it's always just people who are recreating or people who thought, "Oh, I'm just camping here because we're going to bike tomorrow." Uh sometimes some of these calls have been actually uh trail workers who uh got there and they're just going to, you know, sleep a few hours and start working on the trails in the morning. None of these calls I'm looking at are anybody that I as chief of police am worried about in our city if that's fair. A

as to the trails particularly two things. One is the parking overnight that would deal with some of the vehicle related issues. We also have hours for the trails. So if they were on the trail after the closing time, there would be a violation there that that's currently on the books. Mayor

Travis, uh, I get the feeling I don't have a lot of support on this, but I will leave you with this. When I did my opening statement of this, I said I anticipate that this would become a problem in the future. I'm not claiming that it's a huge problem now. Um, I know other cities in our area do have this problem. I'm involved in emergency services just north of the border and there's a large population of people that like to camp on city property or private property and they're being displaced by the development there. and I anticipate uh this is a short move for them. Um nonetheless, it's just something that I was trying to be proactive and and fix for our city. So, we can I don't have any more discussion on it. Well, in Travis defense, it is pretty discouraging what you see in some cities in the United States, the way that they've allowed a minority of people to virtually rule the whole city. Really? Wendy.

Hey, Chief. Do we um if we have individuals who are camping because they are homeless, do we offer them any resources or places they can go shelters in the area or do we do we have offer any of that or just tell them to leave?

No, we've run across very few of those and when we do my my officers try to offer them what what's available. If they're veterans, there's VA services or you know, whatever shelter services. Uh, a lot of times most folks don't want to take those services. Uh, Blue Crane, we worked with them. Some of their development, the land they bought, uh, that borders between us and Missouri, there was a homeless camp out there. I think maybe that was what you were talking about. Uh, we worked with them and then in M County because Blue Crane asked us, you know, can you move them off? And we've talked to them. We put trespassing, we gave them trespassing notices. We did the legal requirements. And then but we told blue crane you know we'll ask them to move but they'll just move into Missouri and then they'll have to work in McDonald County for that and that's what they had to do. Um so uh we we do I mean my officers always do offer people help and if if if they most times in my experience now I haven't been out there and my officers have always asked for this but in my experience most folks that are camping out you know in in in the I guess wilderness if all folk you know they don't really they like it. they don't really want the help and want to give them.

I appreciate the compassion and um the discernment the officers use and the resources they do provide and try to help.

Okay. Um thanks for the discussion. I think we can move to the next item. Thank you, Chief. Uh E is an ordinance amending ordinance number 2025-16 establishing a business license to exempt short-term rental management businesses from the licensing requirement and for other purposes. Travis, this was yours also.

Thanks, Mayor. Uh this one got brought up by several people in this uh short-term rental community that reached out to me and and voiced their concerns that they didn't think that this was fair. if they're a management company that's only managing short-term rentals, then all of their clients are already paying $150 a year for the permit, and it just seemed like uh they were getting the short end of the stick. So, I would like to propose an ordinance to uh to abolish that for for them. They're an inhome uh business. They don't have a brickandmortar place. They're not accepting clientele. They go to the person's short-term rental that's already licensed. And so, it just seemed like an unnecessary piece of the business license. to also remind the council uh the major concern from uh the fire department with the business license was so that the fire department knew if a business moved occupation or uh moved their business somewhere else or occupied a business that wasn't zoned for their particular type of business and that's irrelevant for a short-term rental management company. Uh, Wendy,

I'm wondering how how is it irrelevant? Because if my my Jason, please correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is if a short if a property management company is a at home business, as long as they are legally operating those zoning areas, they do not need a business license.

Any homebased business that is allowed, meets the definition, no matter what kind it is, uh, does not have to have a business license. And then I'm not sure, do we know how many brickandmortar property management companies we have in Bella Vista that also do not currently have a business license in another municipality in Arkansas? Because if they already have a business, say they're they have two locations, they have one based in Bentonville, one based in Bell Vista, and they already have business license in Bentonville, they don't have to get one for Bella Vista. That's in the ordinance already. That that's correct. So I want to make sure I just didn't know how widespread this problem was. Um, mayor. Hi, Travis.

Yeah, the city is currently making this type of business owner get a business license, even if it's a homebased business. I have email proof and I sent them to Mr. Kelly. Even I I haven't particularly studied this except I had a conversation with Taylor and there is actually a definition of a homebased business in our uh law and uh she said these people don't meet it. I'm not sure I guess I'm that why they would not meet it because they don't have clientele. They don't do retail services unless it's more than 20% of the Yeah.

So, let me I've got the definition of home home occupation here, but so what we're we're drifting off now into interpretation of the zoning code. So, that that gets into sort of what the BZA does and and um and then the zoning administrator's initial determination that sort of like what we did with the meters and you're we we just did that. So, I guess if someone objected and said, "Hey, I'm I'm a lawful homebased business." The the problem if it's truly not a homebased occupation, they don't have a b they've got a business license problem. They've got a zoning problem because now they're operating in a business in a residential zone. And that's a much more serious concern. Every day's violation if they're doing that. So, the $10 business license is the least of their concern if that's what's going on. But, you know, there there are there are a list of criteria to meet what a home occupation is. I don't know what these if there's someone who's been agrieved. I you know, I don't know. I I that's uh if they've applied and been told something, I don't know what the application was. I we I don't have that. But, um um I don't really all I can tell you.

Um could Wanda please distribute the emails that Mr. Harp is referring to uh to the council in a way that does not violate FOYA if that is if he's willing to share them. Do you have emails? No, but she could. Yes, we can we can distribute information to the council in a centralized way. So, there's a way to do that. Yeah. Thank you. Um and if I have it, I don't remember. I mean, you sent me some stuff, but I didn't see an application. We we had a debate back and forth about whether the city was telling them they couldn't get their short-term rental permit without getting the business license. And I interpreted as they said they were withholding the

Oh, that was a whole different thing. No, but it was based around a homebased business. And I think Wendy, you you were trying to argue against me and inadvertently help me make my argument that this shouldn't be uh subject to those to those fees. Yeah, I want to be very careful about discussing any particular circumstance because that's someone who has legal rights that could make an argument and we need to be available to discuss the city's requirements in a in a lawful way and without discussing I don't want to say something hypothetically that could endanger our legal position. Nor do I want to unfairly characterize whatever they may be doing. I I just don't know. The emails are discoverable under foil law. So there anybody can see those emails

of course. No one's trying to hide anything. Okay. So, this doesn't feel like an ordinance. I think it's a rush to an ordinance. So, it just there's pathways to figure out what's happening. Sounds like you're already helping. So, I don't know why we have an ordinance in front of us over one person complaining to you about a miscommunication. Yeah. It's a it's a either a BZA issue, a B board border zoning adjustment because they feel the interpretation the prop I would say this the proposal does have relevance if you're talking about a separate location that's not in a home right uh that would that would have an impact this would definitely have an impact in that regard

so I you know in our wisdom or or again if if whatever the business is doing triggers something that means it's not a lawful home occupation pursuant to the zoning code. Yeah.

But in the wisdom of the council, we passed the business law requirement, business license requirement. Any more discussion or well this would be on first reading so it would give people some time to sort things out. Um F is an ordinance requiring the Bella Vista Advertising and Promotion Commission to publish financial statements on its official website and for other purposes. Uh Travis,

I'm almost done. I think this is my last one. Uh this just goes back to a transparency issue. Um I think that the citizens should have a right to see where their tax dollars are being spent. Um I intended to capture that with posting the minutes, but accidentally overlooked that they won't necessarily post their financials with those minutes. Uh so this basically just mirrors the the last ordinance that the council and their wisdom like uh Larry had said uh authorized the passing of which was the minutes posting. um took even took Larry's uh amendment and made this mirror that. So, this just basically says that the AM will publish their financials along with their minutes.

Would would you be agreeable to having attorney uh Kelly reddraft this for us? I drafted it the first time. Well, it says Oh, you you drafted the first one? What's in the packet? I wrote for Mr. for Mr. Harp. Okay. But to answer your question, yes. Yeah. He can reddraft it if he would like. A

if we're going to bring up the AMP again, is there any other conceivable thing that we would want them to regularly publish to their website that we need to include like board members, anything else so we don't have 15 ordinances about this? I mean, I don't have a crystal ball that's working currently, but I think this is uh I think this would make me and the folks that have reached out to me feel comfortable. Hopefully there's enough people that have complained to me that makes this one worth it compared to the other ones, but I think it's an issue. Is this uh Jason, is this within our power since the AMP doesn't report to us or

um I I think there's an argument that it that it is as much as the publication of the minutes on the website. I mean, that you're basically just saying they got to post their financials on the website. I think you do have enough general authority to do that. um you you can't govern how they spend their money. You couldn't object to their finances. You know, there there are certain u lines there that that we don't have any authority over. But this is just a general u basically public public welfare type of ordinance uh for public information. And so um I think it is within the authority of the council to require it uh if you so choose to do it. Uh the only thing gave me a little pause about it personally was the definition of uh financial statements. Uh it could encompass a lot of things. I think really their P&L and balance sheet which I think they produce when they have meetings as opposed to monthly.

This this doesn't require them to create particular statements. What what it says is that they shall publish financial statements. Financial statements means any written means any written financial report summary or presentation concerning the commission's revenues, expenditures, assets, liabilities, fund balances, or budget status that is presented to the commission at a regular or special meeting including and then it gives a list of things. So it doesn't require them to create certain financial statements. Oh yeah. And so it's just whatever they have, they get a financial report. Those documents would have to be put on the website. Yeah. They also have to produce those if you send a freedom of information request and Sure.

So, I don't see a difference between just posting them so they're available. It's a tax. No, I I'm not I don't particularly have a problem with that, but I just wasn't sure. I thought that definition was pretty broad. You could have something that's not really a financial statement fall into that. As a point of clarification, if there is if there is an FOI to the to the uh commission, does that have to resulting in financial data, does that have to be published? That's not a financial report. An FO, no. They

a financial someone can just request documents from the A& Commission now and say, I want to see everything that was provided in financial all the financial records. I want to see all financial records. I mean, they could do that for three years ago or yesterday or whatever. They can request any of those things and it would be provided. This is just to put we've got to say what it is they've got to post online for convenience. Basically, what we're talking about for public convenience. Sure. If they Wow. Okay.

And then putting some definition on that so they know what it is they've got to specifically link. Doesn't mean someone couldn't ask for more as an FOI request later on or in addition there too. So, so as an example, an FOI request about financial information from them, they would create some kind of a response. Well, they don't have to create a record to respond to FOI. They would just have to allow inspection or copying of records that they had. FOI doesn't require creating information. This doesn't require creating information. Okay. This just requires them to put those with the statement, the records that they have available online on the web. Yeah. Okay.

Uh Craig. Okay. Um so I mean any of this information would be available upon request by anybody Arkansas citizen. Yes. Right now. Yes sir. So I mean I'd almost be curious if you asked 50 people if they knew they had an AMP commission.

I bet 48 would say what's an AMP commission? So, I'm really having to struggle with why we're taking so much time with something that's really pretty frivolous in my mind. I don't know how many complaints you get. I mean, I don't know if that's a Facebook poll or whatever it is. I've never heard anybody approach I've never had anybody approach me about anything commission related ever. I'm just dumbfounded that this is such a hot topic, especially if we can if I could go to the AM commission tomorrow and say I need all your financials, bring it on. So, I mean, why are I I guess I don't understand what what we're doing here.

I'm I'm dumbfounded that you want to not be transparent with tax money. Oh, that's you're putting those words in my mouth. Well, you just said you don't know why it's such a big deal because it's a it's a tax. I just we keep piling on to a nothing something. It ju this just keeps compounding into allpies avenues and I just don't understand what what the result is going to be. I would be curious to see how many web hits you get on the financials after all this stuff's said and done. I mean, it it's not a transparency thing for me.

I could care less, but I just don't know why we're just beating this to death. Well, I would encourage you to talk to the business owners that are subject to these taxes because they'll tell you they have a problem with it. They'll tell you they're uncom I will bring receipts. I'll let them know. I'll let them know to reach out to you. I will. Okay. So, Jay, quick question. uh Anna. So if we wanted to foyer the information of how many people have reached out and requested this information from um Mr. Harper, anyone else in the council were able to do that.

FOI is not asking a question and getting an answer. An FOI would be I would like to FOI all the emails you have on a particular topic or all emails dealing with complaints about financials or that could those are public records. Emails are public records. Messages are public records. texts or public records. Okay.

And just for clarification on the tax part of it, um the 2% tax that is on short-term rentals is a pass through tax paid for by the person people who occupy the short-term rental. Um because I purely stay in Airbnbs, I pay these taxes for all the communities that I stay in um all spring break is what I'm doing. Um, and then there's the 1% unprepared food. So, restaurants, we all do enjoy that. Um, but we have found there's data that I think it's about 40% of the money the AMP gets is from out of town guests. So, there's that. Well, passing in in my humble opinion, passing this uh would would be uh adding insult to injury in responding to the public comment and and observation now that big government is here to help you and they really aren't. There are avenues to get the information now without any issues. So I I I can't support it. So

Okay. Well, I think we've had that discussion and that will come up at the meeting next week, of course. Next one's the resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into a contract with Forvis Mazar's LLP in amount not to exceed $61,000 for audit services for the year ended December 31, 2025. Uh Kim Hall, if you could approach the bench closer.

Sorry, I hit the other leg this weekend, so it's taking me a minute. U this is an easy one. Our auditors have been for us for several years now and we have been able to um get our audits out timely and without any management comments without any problems. So uh last year as you all know we had a gap audit for the first time and uh that was a pretty pretty big deal a really big deal. Uh so this is the next year and we're still doing a gap audit for this year. Uh and this is just to sign the contract. They are going to be out at the city next week. If not next week, the week after they're trying to decide, but it'll be it starts. It starts very soon.

It's budgeted. It's budgeted. It's budgeted. I think I put that in the I think I put that in the thing. Moubber, but yes, it is budgeted. Shay, could you help us understand how a GAP audit aids in government transparency, please? Oh, how much time do I have? One minute, please. Okay. Well, honestly, it's about rules. So a regulatory audit is what we used to do but a gap audit it takes it from being a regulatorybased audit and brings it into a GAP which is generally accepted accounting principles

accounting principles. So it just makes it a little more consistent with how you do uh business or private industry audits. That's my one minute answer. Thank you. Sounds like we're doing some efforts to have transparency.

Exactly. It really is. Um it requires a lot more work on our part and they test a lot more than they used to. Um and a big part the big the biggest difference that we experience is with our fixed assets and that's why u that that's why it t it's so much harder. It's so much harder than it was. The reason this came up initially is uh when we got bids on the revenue bond, uh one company bid quite a bit lower than the others, but they wanted a gap audit. So that's how we first got started on it. Once we did it, I told Kim, "Well, we, you know, it's kind of like when you're in the big time, you want to we might as well stick with it because the first year is the worst." It was really something else. Uh, you know, we were doing stuff like having a value put a value on all the streets.

Yeah. Coverts and bridges and uh flashing signs. You know, the the what are they? I'm sorry. The stop signs with flashers on them. No, the um the crosswalk ones, hawks. That's what they're called. Yeah. So, yeah, we had to Yeah, it was it was quite the endeavor. And then not only did we have to do that, monitor our stuff, but they had to accept it. And so it takes a whole crew on their side too to agree with what we've done. That it was a big deal. Anna, sorry if you already answered this. Is this an annual thing and will we plan to do it every single year? Yes, we are. Okay. We're required to do an audit every year anyway, right?

We're required to do an audit every year and um either legislative audit or private audit. And the legislative audit is about a year and a half behind. So by doing private audits, we get our audits much faster. And you know, I'm a big proponent is you can't react if if your audit is a year away, you can't react, right? If there's a problem and the audit finds a problem, finding it a year to 18 months after the end of the year is not helpful. You want it to be faster. And yes, ma'am. Okay. And it's it's running behind because of our state level government. Correct. Correct.

Okay. I think we're all set. Why don't you stay up there though? The next I'm walking away. The next one is a resolution amending the 2026 city budget to reappropriate unspent donation revenue to various departments from 2025.

So this is also an annual process. We do this every year and this is just basically so in the audit you will see you will see restricted assigned and unrestricted funds in the fund balance. Um our donations are assigned. Okay. So what we do is every year is we look at the the balance last year and we allow the departments to spend up to the amount of donations you see on this list. Okay. So that's so we're just giving them the ability to do that in this year's budget so they don't have to come back. In part of what we did in and there's a note on here in 2023, we also said that if you get a if you get a donation in 26, it is deemed approved for spending in 26. So they don't have to come back to you for every donation they want to spend if they want to spend every single penny they have in donations. Mayor

Travis, uh, it'd be fine with me to put, uh, H on the consent agenda.

Okay. While you're on that subject, what about G? Is it just a budgeted item? I have no no opposition, Larry. What about you? I I could Yeah, I could go either way. Okay, I guess we'll try G&H on consent agenda then. I like when they're simple. Thank you guys.

We didn't have many resolutions tonight, so we didn't have much of a chance to do that. So, okay, we've got one more discussion item. It's fiscal year 2027 uh NWA RPC grant application planning and develop department. and Megan Workman is here to tell us about it.

Thank you. So, the planning and development department is interested in applying for a surface transportation block grant from the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission to cover the cost to construct an extension of the Blowing Springs Greenway from its current terminus point at the Metfield Skills Park all the way up to the trail head that will be established at Sleepford Lane. This project includes a 1.6 6 mile of new 10- foot wide paved trail with that new trail head there at Sleepford. The estimated cost of construction is 3,539,264. This grant uses an 8020 funding structure. 80% of the construction cost, which is about 2.8 million, would be covered by federal funds and the remaining 20% about 707,000 would require local match. a local private entity has already formally invited the city to apply for that local match. So if that is accepted, 100% of the cost to construct this extension would be covered by grants.

So where is this going? It will go from the Metfield Skills Park up to Sleepford Lane. So it it's on Commonwealth there. Once it reaches Trfalger, it will take that left and then it's about half a mile up on the right hand side. to Leford. It's a right on Trafalogar, isn't it? It is a ride on Travagar. You go to You go towards the east. Correct. Cross in front of the fire station there. Travis, thanks, mayor. I've only had one person complain about this. So, I don't know if that's enough for the council to want to move forward with it because we've only had one complaint. Um, but even one complaint is enough to make me support it. So,

a complaint about the lack. Oh, okay. I guess Larry, rightway requirements for this. Do we have POA support for use of common property or is it will this be along road right ofway? Do we have to acquire right ofway? A majority of the project is within public rightway. There are two easement acquisitions that are required. However, those will be handled privately and not by the city through the construction phase. So when you say in the public road rightway, will that be detracting from the ability to expand that street in the future for traffic capacity?

No, the roadway is plenty wide enough to accommodate any future expansions of Commonwealth or Trofaler and the 10 foot wide path based on the city's plan for that long term. Correct. Based on the master street plan. Mayor Travis and we we previously had funding for this and it fell through. Is that correct? It was privately funded. So the city was just going to accept the gracious gift. However, the private funding fell through through multiple years. And so are you just approaching council to let them know that you plan you intend on applying for the grant?

Correct. So if it's of interest of the city council, we'll return with a resolution for Monday.

I agree. Please do. Uh yeah. Uh it kind of caught my ear. Taylor already knew about this, but I was sitting there at NWA RPC meeting and they were talking about the deadline for grants being in early April and they said you had to have a resolution from your council. So, this is one of those things we really need you to vote yes on. Sometimes you have things you need council to vote yes on in the worst way. And this is one of those because uh you don't have an application without that resolution from council. So, and it's it's what was interesting uh is, you know, it kind of fell by the wayside before and uh I give Taylor and Megan and their department credit for they took the initiative to apply for the grant and uh my understanding is Walton's liked that quite a bit that we were, you know, taking the initiative to try to get it going again and, you know, just the fact that we would ask somebody to to help out on it. So, it was it was received more positively than she anticipated is the way she described it to me. So,

I'd agree. Yeah. Appreciate all your work on the trails. I've found that it takes some patience sometimes. Some of these things, you know, you think are going to happen then a year or two later, what hadn't happened yet? So municipalities, it's like turning the Titanic, but we'll get there eventually with everyone collaborating. Good analogy. Yeah. So, thank you. Unless somebody has something else, that's pretty much it for tonight. Larry,

I have a question. Um, I understand the state of Arkansas got a million dollars from uh as a as um the opioid settlement. uh some additional money came in and so will we see any of that physically or will that go to several years ago the city agreed to participate in the statewide effort on that opioid litigation through the municipal league and by doing that it agreed that any of the proceeds that come from that go into the common fund which will go towards statewide programs. Um, so I do not anticipate there will there will ever ever be individual money to the city of Bella Vista. Okay.

But we certainly could benefit from what's going to result. Yeah. Uh based on those settlements. Okay. Thank you. I think we're all set then and we'll see you next Monday at 6 PM. We are adjourned.