Public Services Council Committee - Regular Meeting

of minutes from June 16 and July 6. I'll give you a moment to review, and then I'll entertain a motion for both.

I'll make a motion to approve unless there's any changes to be denoted. Second.

I have a motion and second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, lock, sign. Next item of business is new business ordinance 26038, an ordinance to amend the code of ordinances and add section 5027 to park rules to prevent camping outside designated camping locations within city parks and city parking lots in the city of Jonesboro. An ordinance to amend the code of ordinances and add section 5027 parks rules prevent camping outside designated camping locations within city parks and city parking lots in the city of Jonesboro. Whereas the city council, the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas desires to ensure our parks and parking lots remain clean and safe for citizens. And the city council recognizes camping outside designated camping areas and city parks and parking lots may impede the use and enjoyment of the parks for citizens. And whereas The language contained in section 50 27 should be added to the code of ordinances and shall be codified. Be it ordained by the city council of city of Jonesboro, Arkansas, that the following language language shall be added to the code of ordinances in chapter 50 article two section 50 27 and shall be shall read as follows. No persons shall camp in any city park or city owned parking lot unless they are located in a designated camping area. Camping means, or the erection of a tent or natural synthetic material or preparing a sleeping bag or other bedding material for use, the apparent purpose of overnight occupancy. Any law enforcement or code enforcement officer in the city of Jonesboro may enforce this ordinance by removing the person in violation hereof and their belongings from prohibited area. Violation of this ordinance may be punishable by a fine of no less than $100 for the first violation of this ordinance, and nothing in this chapter shall prevent City from granting permission to camp in a restricted area during a special event.

Move to forward to full council.

Second.

I have a motion to forward to full council. Any discussion by the committee?

I have a question I just thought about, Chairman. Yes, sir. With this... camping and it spoke specifically to tents and blah, blah, blah. But is there an ordinance about RVs if they park outside in camp? I mean, maybe I'm.

I'll have to defer to the city attorney on that question. I don't believe that there is.

We don't have a different ordinance on RVs in the city parks, but I believe that it would be covered under shelter. in that definition, because it says erecting of a tent or shelter of natural or synthetic material or preparing a sleeping bag. So I believe what we were hoping that this would do is, because it includes parking lots and parks, would eliminate unpermitted camping in those areas. When we talk about special events like Barbecue Fest, there are obviously some RVs that come in for the people that are cooking, and they would be given a special permission to be there in the designated areas that we have for it. But I believe it would cover RVs. We may want to look at some specific language for RVs. This is kind of a jumping off point to get started on making sure we have a restriction on where you can camp in the parks because we're expanding our parks.

If someone does say outside of Craighead's camping area, with an RV just speaking. So we would use this.

I believe we would use this. And if we need to get more specific with the definition, we can certainly do that. This is just our jumping off point to try to keep people in the designated camping areas.

Yeah, so if we have to change the, how does that work if you have to change the language?

We just amend it.

All right. Yeah. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Question for the city attorney. How does this apply to folks? I mean, I've read the definitions here, but folks camping at Union Park on Union, on our city property, just sleeping on our picnic tables and stuff there.

They can't set up a camp there.

But you could sleep.

Well, they can't have a... I mean... you or I could sit at a picnic table and fall asleep, right? As long as we're not setting up a sleeping bag and setting up an actual camp, I think that's where you're crossing.

And I know this is only slightly adjacent, but it's like on the same line of thinking. I know Tim Griffin used some police officers in his office to, I guess, cite people, arrest people for loitering, whatever the right terminology is. How does loitering apply to anything that we're talking about here? Like particularly, let's say in the Union Park situation, when are you loitering and when are you,

I think that that would be, I think that the whole point of parks is for people to loiter in them. Like, I think it would be hard to.

Say the sidewalk there, like in the Tim Griffiths.

Well, this doesn't cover, this ordinance specifically is talking about parks and parking lots. We have debated an ordinance, you know, bringing forth an ordinance about sidewalks, but we haven't done that yet. So this is strictly parks and parking lots.

So what does it mean to loiter in a city parking lot, I guess, under the guise of what Tim Griffin's thinking on loitering?

I mean, we already have some designated no loitering signs in our parking lots. And part of that stemmed from situations that occurred when our local... restaurants and bars are closing at 2 a.m. and we had fights and things like that where people just hung out in city parking lots and stayed there. And we did put up some no loitering signs in our city parking lots already to try to prevent criminal activity in those parking lots. So we already have some signage on some of the downtown parking lots about loitering for that reason.

Any other questions by the committee? Any questions by the public? Jim, you want to come up?

Ms. Porter brought a great question up in between the meetings. This would not affect Boy Scouts camping at a non-campsite area at Craighead Forest. The process for them, they would fill out a special permit for their event, and we would designate them a campsite area. So I just want to make sure, just to publicly let her know, that this wouldn't affect if the Boy Scouts chose to have a special event at Craighead Forest and camp at a site outside of our campsite.

as long as they do it with permission. And that's what we were talking about. And there could be other things, disc golf, let's say, if they want to set up tents and anything like that where they have a special event that they want to camp.

Thank you for that clarification. Anyone else? Okay, we have a motion and a second. What's the desire of the committee? Please mark your vote. and that does carry to full council. Next item of business is resolution 26-125, a resolution authorizing the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas to enter into a land use agreement with the Northeast Arkansas Children's Museum for property located at 215 West Monroe Avenue. Resolution authorizing the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas to enter to a land use agreement with the Northeast Arkansas Children's Museum for property located at 215 West Monroe. Whereas the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas prioritizes community development, education opportunities, and family-centered infrastructure to enhance the quality of life for all residents, and whereas the Northeast Arkansas Children's Museum is establishing a regional facility designed to provide interactive educational, cultural, and developmental experiences for children and families across the region, and whereas the city of Jonesboro is the owner of the real property and existing facilities located at 215 West Monroe Avenue, as detailed by the attached survey, indeed, lots 10 and 11 of block E, Jonesboro, Arkansas, 72401, And whereas the executing land use agreement for said municipal property, well, it's moving on me. with the Northeast Arkansas Children's Museum serves a significant public purpose in fostering economic vitality, education, enrichment, and downtown revitalization. And whereas the city seeks to safeguard public assets by ensuring that existing structures on property remain intact until full project capitalization is confirmed and that the site reverts to the city should the project fail to reach financial closing by January 1, 2030. And whereas the City Council of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas has reviewed the proposed terms and protection determined to entering the agreement aligns with the best interest of the city and citizens, now, therefore, it be resolved by the City Council of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Section 1. City Council hereby approves entering into a land use agreement with Northeast Arkansas Children's Museum for property located at 215 West Monroe Avenue. Jonesboro, Arkansas, 72401, to support the development and operation of regional children's museum. Section two, the land use agreement shall contain explicit protective covenants stipulating that, one, demolition restrictions, the Northeast Arkansas Children's Museum shall not demolish, alter, or remove any existing building or structure on the property until long-term capital financing for the project has been fully secured and verified by the city, and two, reversionary interest in the event that long-term financing is not secured by January 1, 2030, or if the project fails to proceed or ceases operation, all rights of the land, existing building, and any improvement shall immediately revert to the city of Jonesboro without encumbrance. Section 3, the mayor and city clerk are hereby authorized and directed on behalf of the city of Jonesboro to execute land use agreement incorporating these protective clauses along with any associated documents required to fulfill the intent of this resolution.

Move to forward to full council. Second.

I have a motion and second. Any questions by the committee?

Chairman. I'm sorry, Carol. I promise I'm not gonna ask another question. I don't care what happens. I'm not gonna ask you another question. I have full faith that all of this is wonderful. And I know you do a great job. So I was just thinking aloud a little bit here under four worst case scenario type situation. I know it's so hard to solve the problem I'm about to mention. How do you define active development of the project? I mean, I'm sure you thought through all this, undoubtedly you and everybody in your office. I'm just thinking, how do you measure that if fundraising wasn't going well or so on and so forth?

And I can't remember, which section are you in?

It's like under four. Yeah, it's under the reversionary right and termination.

Section two, number two.

I mean, we were mostly looking at the long-term financing on that. Ask your question again.

I mean, I'm just, I remember the city of Wiener had a big fight over a building down there between the senior citizens and somebody else over some kind of situation along these lines. hopefully everything goes great and they keep raising money and everything's wonderful, but I was just thinking along the lines of, it talks about if they cease active development, we can kind of take everything back away from them and say, hey, things didn't work out, this is our building, we're taking back over.

So I think we mostly were talking about, I think the way I read that is that we're talking about in the event that the long-term financing is not secured, um and we put it we did not originally have a timeline on that originally we just said if financing you know is not secure then it's going to revert back to us and we did decide that we probably needed to put a timeline on that so that's where the january 1 2030 comes in And I think that when you then get to the or, we're talking about if the project fails to proceed or ceases operation. So fails to proceed to me means that it kind of reverts back to that first sentence where it's talking about they didn't secure their finances by January 1, 2030. then it's gonna come to us. Or if they build the museum but for some reason they can no longer finance the continuing of operation of the museum and it ceases operation, it would return to us. So if there are other concerns about defining that, I'm sure we could amend that to add some additional language if you have any that you suggest. But we were thinking mostly of that covering the ability to raise the funds for the project, and then if at some point after the project is built and operating, for some reason they can't maintain operation because of a funding issue, that it was clear that it reverted to us. And we were more focused, honestly, on being clear that not only the land reverts to us, but anything that's been improved on the land reverts to us. because while you went into, what does that mean? We went into thinking of the Citizens Bank building where one person owns the building and one person owns the property, and we wanted to make sure it was clear that it all reverts to the city without any encumbrances if it ceases to operate. But if you have some suggestions, I mean, I'm sure we're open to clarifying that more if we need to.

I guess essentially three years, and that makes a lot of sense. That's a nice runway for them to work on it, and it's not like, if everything fell apart for some reason, it's not like we have grand plans in the next three years. So I think that's appropriate amount of time for both parties to work on it. So that makes sense, thank you.

We were mostly thinking of failing to proceed in the means of financing and building the building more so than... I'll give it some thought. If we come up with some better clarification language, we'll suggest an amendment before it gets through council.

Well, here I am adding to it.

Okay, here we go. Maybe I should make notes.

So literally in the same contract, I'm looking under the terms and conditions and that was in four, but 3B, city through its designated administrative representative or city council reviews and provides written approval confirming that the financing confirmation threshold. has been fully met. Kind of share with me what.

Are you in the agreement or are you in the?

No, I'm on the actual land agreement, yes. I'm on the agreement, the land use agreement, the contract.

The second, number two, can you pull that up?

Under demolition and structural alteration restriction three B.

So what's your question about that again?

I just want an explanation on what that means because obviously it says city council and then it says administrative representative and who would that be? and what is confirming the financing confirmation?

I don't remember if somewhere in there. I think what we're meaning is before you start tearing down our building over there, we need to confirm that you have raised enough money to build your building. That's the way I read that. So before they can start any type of demolition on the building that exists there or substantially altering the building that is currently on the property, we have to be able to verify either, and I don't know that we've designated a representative, an administrative representative, but either city council or an administrative representative needs to determine that enough money has been raised to actually build something back. So we don't.

That's what that means by, because that's mainly what I was asking, financing confirmation threshold.

We want to make sure that they've raised enough money to build a building there before they tear down our building. They can't raise enough money to do the demolition and prep the lot and not have the money to build something back. They're not allowed to tear down that building before they've raised enough money to build their building. Does that make sense?

It does.

And that's what that means.

OK, so going through the process, and I'm just talking out loud. Just help me process this. So basically, when I go through that process of building this building, of course, we've got to go through the codes and blah, blah, blah, and get it approved. Then that's when basically administration will say, hey, the building, what it's worth, what you've raised, all of that, is that works for them?

I would assume they're going to submit plans for what they want to build. And then we're going to confirm that they have the financing to build what they think they have the financing to build. And then we would agree that they can move forward with dismantling or demolishing or renovating. I don't know which choice they're going to make, but probably dismantling or demolishing the building that's on the property. And Heather's here if you want to ask her specific questions about their plans.

Chairman, along the lines of what Dr. Coleman was saying on 3B there, I'm almost wondering if that, and the city attorney could help me out here, I'm almost wondering if the or shouldn't be an and. I don't think.

My perspective would be it would need to come to the council as a whole.

But without the and, if it's an or. It could be either way. So it needs to be an and.

I don't know if we need to necessarily be the one saying, yeah, you've raised enough money. I mean, I think. But if we don't have an and, as the city council. I mean, it's our job to, like, do resolutions and pass ordinances. It's not our job to audit financials of a nonprofit organization. or another company and say, yeah, I mean, we're not a loan approval committee.

I just hate to see this. I would just hate the council to not have another round of involvement in what could potentially be a big decision. And I feel like if we don't change order and we're kind of.

Well, we're not. I mean, again, the decision of the city designated representative and the city council is not telling them what they can build on that building, on that lot. That's up to them to determine what they can do. The only oversight that you have under B is to make sure once the plans are developed that they really have the money to build it before they tear our existing building down. It's more about tearing down our building than it is about what they want to build. Whether they want to build a one-story, two-story, five-story, I don't know. It depends on how much money they raise, right? What they want to build there is not our decision. I feel like this administrative oversight is just to make sure that they can really build what they... say they wanna build financially before they tear down our existing building. It's not really about approving what they build. I mean, obviously the planning department's gonna approve, I mean, separate from code, right? Obviously through code, we're gonna approve what they build. But I mean, determining whether it's two stories, three stories, one story, that's not really the oversight that we're talking about here. It's just making sure they've got the financing in place. before they tear down our building. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I understand that clause to mean.

I move to change or to end.

I mean, this is not the resolution. This is the attachment. So, I mean, I guess the question would be, is that a friendly amendment to the yes to the museum but yeah i don't care i don't think so they can edit that and and get it to april and provide a changed version of that to you guys to attach for city council yeah this is in the agreement anyway yeah this is in the agreement it's not in the resolution really irrelevant to the discussion here right we can get that changed so on the resolution piece heather do you want to address anything anything else by the committee not unless council has specific questions

Anything else from the public? We have a motion and a second. Please cast your vote. And that does carry to full council. Next item of business is other business, communication 26048, GOJO update. Lee.

I'll try to be real brief. So we are really excited about a lot of the changes that we've brought on board. As you all are aware, we have some new payment systems. We have some new software. We're trying to get all of that integrated in with the routing software and the programming in the bus. So as we continue to work through all of that, we're seeing some dramatic improvement. We did, I'm just going off the top of my head, but last week alone, we had about 200 trips per day. And out of all of the trips that we did, about 15% of those are actually utilizing that UMO payment system. So that's a, you know, considering this is the first second week of usage. We're pretty happy with that. We'll continue to grow that. We are gonna do some more public outreach to try to bring awareness to what we're doing. We also did begin our Red Wolves Express for the football season. We have fully integrated that into our regular routing software and bus system to where we are using the bus stops as a traditional bus route would and getting that also up on our app to showcase the times and arrivals and location of the buses for ease of the passengers that are wanting to utilize that shuttle over to campus. We also did add a full campus service for students. We did have a number of students that participated in that and we see that growing dramatically as we continue. Along that lines, we've done a lot of outreach programs, especially with Arkansas State University, working with a bunch of the new student orientations and other things that we've been working on to try to bring awareness of that program. And we're going to continue to do that. We've also... We're really starting to grow our social media with the Facebook. We are now starting to see that become the usage that we really thought that it would be of not only giving awareness to programs and things that are going on, but also notifications of adjustments and service changes, and then also getting feedback from that. We did go through a public comment period not long ago, which I think we've discussed a little bit about with our fare adjustments, adding some additional stops and changing some routes up. And that public comment, we got a lot of good feedback on that. One of the things that came about from that was changing up some of the routing, specifically for the campus shuttles to accommodate the students and again bring more access to the city. As we continue to move forward, we just invite everyone to reach out to us. whether it's on Facebook, whether it's an email, whether it's giving us a call, try to get some information so we can answer any questions you may have. We do have a lot of moving pieces and we're really proud we've been able to continue to pull those all together. And I know one of the biggest hurdles has been the concept of UMO and the fare capping and the changing of that structure on the way we used to do things. So we've been having those conversations. We're continuing to have those conversations. So just reach out to us. Let us know if there's any questions. And if there's anything I didn't touch on, I'd be happy to talk about if you have any questions for me.

Any questions for Lee?

Well, not a question, but I'd just like to see some numbers next time. Yes, sir. Kind of where we are, increase or decrease in those routes. That's all. Thank you.

Anything else by the committee?

Chairman, I would just agree with Dr. Coleman. I just think if we could have a written report, that'd be great.

Sure. Thanks, Lee. Next item of business is communication 26049, Parks and Rec's update.

Jim?

Y'all knew to take my time as much as you could, didn't you? Really, really quick, I'm gonna give y'all a great numbers. You want some numbers, I've got numbers. This year at the pool, total visitors was 16,263. at the pools this summer. Had a great summer. Youth sports fall registrations right now, we have 51 registered for cheer. Flag football has 336 participants. We have 28 co-ed teams that are gonna be playing this fall. We outfitted 105th and 6th graders for tackle football for the JHS tackle football program. Miracle League has almost 90 participants signed up to start Miracle League baseball in two weeks. Soccer has 1,449 participants, 129 teams. Softball has 25 adult teams, 300 participants, 31 youth teams, 405 participants. Volleyball as of today has 323 registration is still open for volleyball. It starts in October. And so that's our fall youth sports. Almost all of those start next Saturday on the 19th out of Joe McCampbell. Cheer, soccer, flag football, all going on next weekend. Softball league is going on now currently during the week. Actually, they're probably playing right now. This past weekend, we have Jonesboro Baseball Boosters and Parks and Rec met with a new baseball tournament organization called Grand Slam Sports based out of Marion, and we've partnered with them. They had their first tournament at Joe Mack last weekend at a two-day tournament at 50 teams, estimated 750 participants, about 4,000 people over the weekend went to Joe Mack Campbell Park for baseball this past weekend. We also had an organization that held softball, remembering 9-1-1 this past weekend, Saturday and Sunday. We had 53 teams, estimated about 4,000 participants and spectators at that event last weekend at Southside. Shooting sports is on a record year this year. We've changed some administration out there. The pistol and rifle side has seen 3,840 people as of August 30th. Trap and Skeet has shot 8,000 plus rounds of Skeet, and we've sold 223 year or lifetime memberships this past year up through August 30th. and then we we've had a jpd has done a little survey for us with the traffic camera that's out of craighead forest park and we estimate at this time that we've had 194 810 cars that have been in craighead forest up through august 30th of this year so we're really excited about where parks is right now going um and so that's really a just a quick short numbers update where we are right now We want to clear up a couple of things. The social media post that went out talked about a parking pass to Joe McCampbell. That was a season pass for youth sports for the fall. It wasn't a parking pass. That was a misnomer. And we've hopefully cleared that up. If there's any questions, we apologize for that error. But that was for a season pass. And then for those of you that aren't aware, we'll have a big social media post. We've changed the traffic pattern on Saturdays at Joe Matt Campbell Park. We'll be very similar to the lights in the park Christmas. Participant spectators will come in through Harry Drive, and they will exit on Dan Avenue. I emailed you guys a PICE proposal, and I don't think we have the time to discuss that here, but certainly I would entertain any questions that you may have about that.

Any questions for Jim? Chairman?

Yes, sir. I know we're out of time, so I don't even want to take any time now, but You're right, we're behind the times. We haven't updated since 2017. You're 100% right.

It's embarrassing.

The only couple that worried me, because a 30% increase from $5 to $7 or whatever is no big deal, right? But like the Earl Bell, like $700 to $1,000, like a couple of those worried me just a little bit. Sure. it's no big deal to us, it's 300 bucks at the city, but maybe that's a big deal to somebody else. So some of those I wish we'd look at maybe being a little bit more incremental, 800 next year, 900 the next year.

What we tried to do with Earl Bell was bring them very similar to what the other community centers were for renting, and actually Earl Bell has more features than the other community centers. I mean, if you rent Earl Bell for the day, you have access to the rock wall, four different community rooms, there's a boxing area. Earl Bell actually has more amenities than the other community centers is why we kind of brought that up to the same cost, but it was a concern. Our board brought that same questions up to us when we presented it to them.

Any other questions?

Yes, sir. I don't know if it's necessarily a question, and what made it so amenable for me is when I looked at the agenda today that you were presenting, and I know you're not aware of this, but it's a very huge concern of mine, I'm prefacing, Because my children and grandchildren are participants in a lot of these sports. And on this past Saturday, I am very concerned because my daughter was jumped on Saturday. You didn't know it, but it was a baseball feud. or whatever that happened. I'm sure you probably heard of it by now. So I'd just like to know, and not today, but you can email me and let me know because she was jumped. And I don't know what we're doing about, hey, I'm a parent. I get routed to, hey, I want them to win, score, run, strike, whatever. But we have to come up with some kind of way to keep the quorum in these games.

So the baseball organization, I reached out to the director. His name is Logan. And he spoke to us, and they have banned both those teams from participating in future events. They've addressed it. He said this has been a history with these two teams. Okay, you're talking about my grandson, too. Yeah. I don't always do. But anyway, I can forward that email to you to let you know what they've addressed it. It was very detailed, much more than we would really. But they've really addressed that. They're going to continue to investigate, and they're going to either ban those teams or those parents from participating in future events. And so, you know, the other option for us would be, and fortunately we had a ranger that was on site while that was happening that kind of helped the 911 process get started a little bit better.

Now, I don't know if I'm necessarily for banning both teams, because we're talking about the kids, because the kids weren't fighting. It wasn't the kids, it was the adults. And so, anyway, just let me know what's happening.

Yes, sir, I'll forward that email from Logan.

Yes, sir.

Any other questions for Jim? Just one minute, please. Any other questions for Jim?

Thank you, Jim.

Yes, sir. Any public comment? Yes, ma'am. Please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record.

You have to restate it when you're at the microphone. Maria Diaz, I'm sorry. That's okay.

You've got a point. It wasn't the kids. It was another team. But it all boils down to the parents. My son was hit by a car two weeks ago. The mother and kids come out of the store laughing. I turn around and told that mother, you need to teach your kids some manners. It comes to the parents. Find the parents, not the kids.

Thank you, ma'am. Any other public comment? Seeing none, next item of business is adjournment. Second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, lock sign. Thank you for your service.