City Council - Regular Meeting

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Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It is 6.30 in the evening on September 15th.

I'd like to call this meeting to order, please. We'd like to give a prayer. Mr. Jack, would you give a prayer, sir?

Yes.

Let's pray. Holy Father, thank you for this glorious day that you've given us. Thank you for the opportunity to live in a country where we can come together and freely share our questions and concerns and to make decisions on how we will live our life. Be with us as we move forward through this meeting. and be with each of us as we leave and go on to our separate lives. And in Jesus' name, we pray this prayer. Amen. Amen. Please join me in a pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, you call the roll, please.

Councilmember Chapman is absent. Councilmember McMillan? Here. Councilmember Heffner? Here. Councilmember Bowles?

Here.

And Councilmember Rubel?

Here.

Got it?

Okay.

And we have a quorum. We're just slightly out of order tonight. First order of business we're going to have is the election of a city council member for ward one, position two. And Mr. Richard Smoker, would you like to come up to the podium, sir? He's the only one who's applied and with good reason because he also signed up to run for office and will be on the city council come January 1st regardless. So do you have anything to say before we get started?

Just it's going to be an honor and a privilege to be able to serve the community in the capacity of being up there with you all and helping make hopefully the right decisions for everything that's going on around here. Very good.

With that, council, I'd entertain a motion to accept Mr. Smoker as the appointed city council member. Motion. Motion. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Madam Clerk, would you read resolution number R2649? I'll read the title, please.

A resolution acknowledging the election of council member for the city of Ward by the majority vote of the governing body.

With that, council, I'd entertain a motion to approve the resolution as read.

Motion.

We have a second? Second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Motion approved. Very good. Let's swear you in.

Okay.

Okay. Raise your hand. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, state your name.

I, Richard Smoker.

Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

Constitution of the state of Arkansas.

Constitution of the state of Arkansas.

And that I will faithfully discharge.

And I will faithfully discharge.

The duties of city council member.

The duty of city council member. Upon which I'm about to enter. Upon which I'm about to enter.

So help me God.

So help me God. Very good. Sir, sign there.

And take your position, please. Is your monitor on?

Thank you.

All right. Next, again, kind of out of order, is the introduction of the new fire department drone. Chief, you can come forward. Did you bring the drone in, sir? Okay. We'll have a look at it.

Is it a big one like Game and Fish has?

It's not massive. We'll have a video in just a second. Demonstration. Yeah, demonstration video. I will tell you that the and it's called Eagle One as it's called sign. So Eagle One's mission is to fire scene assessment, search and rescue operations, disaster response, hazmat incident, and we could have used it several years ago when we had hazmat incident on the interstate. That'd been nice to have. Pre-incentive planning, training, and public safety. I will tell you that this is a fire department asset. It'll be operated by fire department trained fire department personnel only. of a police department, ours or sheriff's office needs its use, they'll contact us and we will respond accordingly. The fire department personnel will be the ones who operate it and only certain members who are trained and signed off.

Right.

Yes, sir. With that, got a nice little video that they created on this and Chief's going to kind of narrate it at times.

I'll try to narrate it.

All right. Music's cool, but I'll let you talk about this.

I think the music was pretty cool. I thought it was. So this drone will actually do about 42 miles an hour. So it has the capability of actually taking off and getting on scene pretty quickly from there as the crow flies, as they say. the the cool thing part of the cool thing is the camera that's actually on it i'm sitting at the ball field zooming in on the ward water tower and you can watch the camera as it zooms in that dish that's actually sitting on that rail is what i was going for as close as i can get to it and it still stay clear the next shot is a little bit better so the camera can zoom up to three quarters of a mile um and if you kind of look you can see it right now that red and white in the back that is the bb water tower i'll take that camera and zoom in on the bb water tower it's now it's 102 degrees so the humidity and everything else the camera is not going to pick up near as good this is the unit in the back of my unit that has a box has a 16 inch flat screen i have a cable that'll actually run from my controller to the screen so you don't have people just hovering over the controls they can stand at the back of the car this video here was taken during the day with the thermal imager on we're still kind of messing with the thermal imaging uh being 102 outside during the day it's hard to it's hard to pick things out you can see deer filled back over there the houses the roof on them houses This was shot at about 150 feet with a spotlight that's on this drone. And you can see it's... Is that rain or bugs? No, them are bugs. I had to get them off the propellers after I landed. So I sent these guys out on a UTV and they hit the woods and I don't know which way they went. Kind of tracked them down with a drone. Found a heat signature under the tree. I had to get them to move out from underneath the tree with the foliage that we have this time of year. The thermal doesn't work near as good now as it would in the wintertime when the leaves are gone. And you notice it kind of changes screens. I'm actually changing the screen, just getting different looks with the thermal. Since this was shot, we've actually honed in on what thermal camera, how to adjust the thermal camera. We actually took it up. This is a little bit of incident command for us. It helps me and other firefighters to be able to like the hazmat spill the mayor was talking about. It would have been great to have it. We could have sent it up, sent it down to the incident. But we actually after we got done, we took the Sims card out for the firefighter to actually make the video. And so we took it back up in the air and. took it across the field and we were just messing with the thermal and the next thing we know we've seen four or five deer and they come in like i mean you could see the horns on the deers so like i said depends on the time of night early morning real late at night when it starts cooling down the thermal starts working a whole lot better summertime not so good during the day i mean 102 degree weather we're going to pick up heat signatures all over the place i can fly it This morning I flew it over the woods, and it's just picking up the heat off the leaves. It just makes a big glow on the ground. You think something's there, and you zoom in, and there's nothing but a pile of leaves. So there are certain situations that we're not going to be able to actually use it on because of that. Other than that, I think it's going to be a big asset for us. Just to let you all know, the other day when I was flying it, Actually flew it up out by the water tower, got up about 150 feet, 200 foot, seen smoke, and about 30 minutes later, one of the CS&Z firemen said they found an illegal burn. So this technology is really going, is really coming into the fire service and the police departments. On this side here, there's paramedics in California right now that are using one-man drones that are responding to calls in these they call them drones they look like a helicopter plane put together but they've actually i believe from what i understand on the police side they actually make a drone that hooks to the body cams police officer goes down he can push the button that drone takes out of a box and goes straight to where they're having an emergency at it's going to be a really good asset for the fire department great for missing persons too Yes, and that that that's the thing is we have gaming fish we've got in our surrounding areas. You know we have the capability. The county has a drone. I'm not really sure on how quickly we could get one of them. I know BB's got a drone, but we're the only fire department in Long County that has grown. So.

Very good, she thank you.

Yes, sir. Any questions?

Any questions?

Yes, Sir. what's the lifespan of this drone the lifespan as far yeah how as far as uh just effective tech logically are we going to have this available as long as we can keep it in there without crashing it okay just like your computer yeah okay yeah it it updates itself um in fact i had to calibrate it last night before we even flew the the thing i had to calibrate it So it actually updates. There's certain things that we do to it. We've got a maintenance schedule, a list, pre-flight plans just like you do with a, well, I wouldn't say like an airplane, but pre-flight plans. This thing's got a cruise on it. You can set it and make it do anything you want it to do.

So we're likely to have it for quite a while.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And yes, sir.

This will be an asset for the department for many years to come.

Okay, good. As long as it stays in the air.

As long as it stays in the air.

Chief, what's the aerial time that you have when it's up in the air? How long?

So they say you've got 40 minutes. I actually have been flying it for about 30 minutes every morning. I take it up. I'm getting close to 25 minutes out of it. So I have four batteries so I can almost get two hours, depends on how fast the batteries are charging. The box I put in the back of the car actually has the charger and everything. So as soon as I pull it out of the drone, I can stick it in the charger. So.

I think it's a great asset.

Maybe put solar on it.

Do what? Do what?

Maybe put solar on it for battery charging.

Solar?

That'll be up to the manufacturer, not us. Yeah.

What is the warranty? What's the warranty on it?

As far as that, I'll have to go. I know exactly, but not exactly off the top of my head right now. But I can get you that answer.

It's warrantied.

Yeah, it's warrantied. I just don't want to say something and it not be right.

Anything else? Chief's got another function he needs to go to. That's why I brought him up first. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

As we continue on getting to other things, next on agenda is review and approval of the council meeting minutes for August 18th, 2026. Council, if you had a chance to review. We have a motion. Second. And we have a second. Any comments? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Next on agenda is the department reports and financials.

I make a motion we accept.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. We have any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Next on the agenda is a planning commission report. Mr. Don, do you have a report for us? Basically, Don wasn't even there last month. He was out of town at a funeral. I'm sorry. But we had just a meet and greet, basically, for the new planning commission member. We had nothing on the agenda. Or they had nothing on the agenda, I should say. It's their meeting, not mine. So there was nothing to report. Next on the agenda is the wastewater committee, which is scheduled to meet, I believe, in November.

Yeah, November 9th. I did want to make a comment. I was able to attend the retail board, retail water board training, which was very informative. They put out a suggestion that perhaps members of the advisory committee may want to participate in that training.

I think they absolutely should. That's something you'll have to attend also. We'll get more information on that. But as a council member, you'll need to attend that requirement.

And one other just kind of a heads up, they're looking at legislation that may require the same type of training for water and wastewater or sewage and wastewater.

They already have.

Okay.

And what they've done is it was a requirement, and now I think they're backing up and combining them. So if you're sitting on this committee, you don't have to go through another eight hours of training. Okay. FOR WASTEWATER.

I'M GLAD I SAID SOMETHING. YES, SIR. THAT'S ALL.

THANK YOU. NEXT ON AGENDA IS THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE. COUNCILMEMBER CHAPMAN, FIRST OF ALL, JUST KEEP YOUR PRAYERS. HE'S AT THE HOSPITAL RIGHT NOW WITH SOME ISSUES. BUT WE DO HAVE A MEETING WITH METRO PLAN THIS WEEK ABOUT THE SURVEY THEY DID FOR PARKS, WHICH IS PART OF OUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE. SO WE'LL HAVE MORE UPDATES NEXT MONTH. Continuing on, old business, I have not had a chance, not my fault, not taking a chance to get with the folks in between Austin and Ward about the right of way. And the gentleman, the one who discussed license plate reader cameras tonight, called me earlier this evening and this afternoon and asked to be put on next month's agenda. So he's moved to there. So we'll move to new business. And first is our 2027 City Attorney interview. If you come to the podium, please. Ms. Julie Hill, as you know, Chris Lacey, our current city attorney, was elected as a judge, so he'll take office next in January, which vacates the city attorney position. Ms. Julie's been interested in and others, and the other individual who was interested backed out, said he was no longer interested, so we have Julie.

yeah that's good go ahead oh just good evening council members i know i've spoken with y'all a couple of times so i won't repeat myself but i did just want to give a little bit of an update i think previously i said i was at a firm out of little rock but i will be october 1st i will be opening my own practice here i'll be in in cabot but just five minutes up the road so um that that's my big update if there are any questions for me that i could answer

The way this is going to go, Council, is tonight we're going to, by motion, accept her as the appointed city attorney. And then her and I, for next month, we'll discuss some ins and outs on the ordinance that we'll bring for you next month to get the process started. And then that'll be October, November. And then by then, we'll have it to where you all approve it with the intention that it begins 1 January. And then whoever the new mayor is, we'll have to arrange getting you sworn in and all that.

I make a motion we accept Julie Hill as our

city attorney starting one january starting one january 20 27. okay second wait a second we have any comments we have any comments from the audience here and all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries you and i will get together we'll work out some language if there is anything to be worked out perfect thank you so much thank you Next on the agenda is resolution 22550. Could you read the title, please?

A resolution appointing Cheryl Uekman to the Ward Water Advisory Committee.

No, it's supposed to be 2650. But thank you for pointing out my mistake. Anyway. So we have a motion yet?

Motion.

All right. We have a motion. We got a second? Second. Any comments?

Yes.

Yes, go ahead.

Oh.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

My daughter. I'm leaving her home next time.

Okay, good idea. Okay, congratulations. Thank you. Raise your right hand. Aye. State your name. Aye. Cheryl Ackman. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the United States of Arkansas. And the Constitution of Arkansas. And I will faithfully discharge. And I will faithfully discharge. The duties of Office of Water Advisory Committee.

The duties of the Office of Water Advisory Committee. Upon which I'm about to enter. Upon which I'm about to enter. So help me God. So help me God. Very good. Thank you. Thank you.

all right welcome to the committee thank you all right thank you very much thanks i've got nothing down more tonight i think i ever have all right very good next on agenda is resolution 2026 51. read title please

resolution authorizing the mayor and or city clerk of the city of ward to enter into a contract with geyser compressors to repair two and blower motors for the wastewater treatment plant accounts we had a couple of motors four motors out there um blower motors uh bruce can explain more if need be but uh they are both need repair we initially thought we were going to have to replace them at about 99 000 and talking with the

a manufacturer to see if we can get it repaired for $37,000. And so I went ahead and signed the contract. So this is an after-fact approval. So I'd entertain a motion to approve Resolution 2651. So moved.

A second?

Second. We have a second. Any comments? Any comments from the audience? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Very good. Next on the agenda is resolution 2026.52.

A resolution authorizing the Mayor and or the City Clerk of the City of Ward to enter into a contract with Vermeer Mid-South Inc. pursuant to source will cooperative purchasing contract to purchase one Vermeer brand vacuum excavator.

So this has been a need that we've had for a while, and then it's come to fruition that we need it more now than later. This machine, basically, and Bruce, if you come forward.

Do we have a picture? I know.

I could find you a picture, but basically, this type of machine, and correct me if I'm wrong, for one thing, it can be used for, if we have a water leak in a utility easement that's full of fiber optics,

Yeah, hydro excavator. Right. So you don't have to have an excavator to dig. And there's so much stuff in the ground these days, there's no room. And so it's almost impossible to dig in certain places. And so pretty much everybody has a hydro excavator. That's the most commonly used tool for water, wastewater repairs. It's just too much stuff in the ground. And in addition, you know, the lift stations get a lot of trash and grease in them. And the only real way to clean those properly is to suck them out and so it's also needed for that to get the trash out of the lift stations and grease and whatnot as it builds up and we have what 42 lift stations not quite that many we have quite a few yeah uh less than 30 but we have quite a few are these ones that like you can see where the where the lines and everything are so that you know what you're getting to is that what you're saying right yeah so you don't have to like

dig into it and then find out that you've hit something you already know.

You basically like more or less pressure wash with very high pressure of the dirt and you suck the mud up into a tank and so it requires no digging.

Much safer.

I literally just read about this so I actually know what you're talking about.

And then after you're done you just push it back out and fill the hole correct?

Yeah, you put new material in and whatnot.

And this is on the source well cooperative purchasing contract, which is approved by the state, so we don't have to go out for additional bidding. This is a cooperative contract.

It's a really good price, too, because a lot of your used ones, similar size, are about that price.

I checked. I found the lowest price one was $70,000. It had 1,000 hours of use on it.

Yeah, so on the source oil contract, they're bare minimum on the cost.

Well, by the law, they have to be 15% under MSRP or something like that.

And it's supposed to totally cut down your time. Like something that would be like six hours, it would take you like two or something. Correct.

And wastewater has this money in the budget, the $75,000?

We'll use it out of operational and or reserve funds. It wasn't budgeted per se, no. Any further comments? Not entertain a motion to approve Resolution 2026-52. Make a motion.

A motion.

We have a second. And we have a second. Any further comments? Any comments from the audience? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Opposed.

Number one opposed. That makes our count three to one. Is that correct?

Four to one.

Four to one. My apology. We had four to begin with. I forgot to

That's all right.

Second mistake tonight. Who's counting? All right. Thank you very much. So that passes. Very good. Next on the agenda is an update on the 2024-25 water audit you provided last time. We've reviewed it. We found a a mistake. The auditors had notified us in the report, it wasn't a finding, it was just mentioned, that we had some funds that were not properly collaterized. That's the word. So we questioned it and they came back and provided us with an update to the water audit that corrected that problem. We didn't have a problem. put it in there wrong. But I also need to, I believe, run through this real quick for the record to make sure that we're all in agreeance. And if I remember correctly, there's some legislative audit report that said we're supposed to, instead of just saying here's the report, i'm supposed to say something about it so i'll go through this a little bit not the entire audit report uh says from the auditors whitmer robinson and company we have audited the accompanying financial statements and business type activities for ward water and sewer the city ward and as the year ended december 31st 2025 and 24 and the related notes to the financial statements which collectively comprise the water and sewer systems basic financial statement as listed in table contents. In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all materials respect and respective financial positions of the business type activities of the Ward Water and Sewer System of the City of Ward. And respective changes in financial positions were applicable cash flows therefore for the year end in accordance with the accounting principles accepted by the United States of America. And then at the very, very end of it, it talks about As part of obtaining reasonable assurance about whether Ward water and sewer system of the City of Ward financial statements are free of material misstatement, we perform tests of its compliance with certain provisions of law, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements. Noncompliance of which could have direct material effect on determination of financial statements. However, if fighting an opinion, Noncompliance with those provisions was not an objective of our audit, and accordingly we did not express such opinion. The results of our test disclose no instances of noncompliance or other matters that require to be reported under the general government auditing standards. So, in other words, clean audit. That's all it says. All right. I think I've already hit the button and moved on. In August, Council, if you remember, we did a special meeting and we have put to the voters in November a ballot measure pursuant to the ACA. The question on the ballot will be, are you in favor of a four-year term for council members elected within the city of Ward, Arkansas? And the options will be for the adoption of Ordinance 2026-11 or against the ordinance setting forth four-year terms for the positions. That has been published in the paper as required by law. And it's been published on our Facebook page also. Just wanted to make that public notice. All right.

What is the current term we're going under?

Excuse me?

What is the current time limit we're working with now?

All current council members work under a two-year term.

Two-year and we're going to four-year.

If approved by the voters this November, the following November, no, the next general election, Position one will be a four-year term. Position two will still be a two-year term. The next general election, position one won't be up for election, but position two will come for a four-year term. And the next general election, they'll start staggering. The goal is that you don't have at one time, everybody could be replaced at one time, which is what we could have happened this year and every four years. But anyway. All right. For the mayor's report, the SART 5 sidewalk project, we're still waiting on RDOT to release the bid, release the bid project. The wastewater rehab project is currently in construction. The Moon Road improvements, we're waiting on RDOT for the next step on this. The ADA improvements on City Hall are underway, as you've seen. They're doing a very good job. The SART 6, we have submitted those paperwork. We're waiting on a ruling on that. The fund grant application, we're waiting for that application to be approved or not. And sometime this week, we're supposed to get our last live camera from PLOC at Busby Lake. And y'all approved last month for us to look at overlaying of Cook, Morrison, County Lane, and Sports Complex. We're waiting for proposed plans from Bond Engineering. And I'd like to propose a 2027 budget workshop November 10th at 6.30 in the evening in the dining hall. So put that on your calendar, please. And of course, the election cycle is forthcoming. There'll be, as I stated before, the voting center will be at the... Chamber of Commerce building on Second Street where it used to be for many, many years. And that's all I have for my report. Do we have any public comment? Mr. Stittman, would you like to make comments?

You know, I think I'll wait until next meeting because the other gentleman is going to speak at that time. Okay. I appreciate the offer.

Yes, sir. Mr. Brooke, would you like to speak? hold over to the next council meeting okay all right so we have any council members who'd like to speak on agenda items i have two things one um

Rob said something about when we were talking last time about the flock stuff we were talking about whether you know crime was deterred or not by it. I have some stuff I was going to share with you guys and I could put it out publicly too for anybody to read. I did some research on that so we can take that up at the next meeting too. And the other thing was I want to give some consideration towards the animal control and look at doing an auxiliary um so i'm just i've got a just a developmental proposal for them they um two people running it and um they're by themselves a lot so they do a whole lot of things and i feel like if they had a good organized auxiliary group to support them volunteer based that they could do more things and um i we it's growing and there's problems with with animals all over the place, but especially for us because we're in rural areas. So if we can give them some help to help them apply for some grants and get more volunteers on a regular scheduled basis. So the proposal, I'll read it to you, but I can pass it out to you. So basically the auxiliary would gradually develop volunteer teams based on the needs identified by the animal control staff so they would actually have some control over it they that might include just socializing with animals or enrichment maybe someone isn't great with dogs or cats but they're great with photographs and maybe they want to volunteer to take pictures you can have events we can have foster family recruitment they can help with the transport supply drives fundraising and community outreach And so it's not something that everybody that's involved has to specifically handle animals, but we could give them a really good structure to get started on it. So I'm going to pass these out to you guys to take into consideration and maybe we can bring it up in the future.

We used to have a Friends of the Ward Animal Shelter. What happened to that? Friends no more.

Friends no more. There were some things that happened. That was some time ago.

All right.

All right. That's all we have for our meeting tonight. With that, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn.

I make a motion we adjourn.

Okay. Motion to adjourn. We have a second, so all the favor, obviously, we're done. Thank you all for coming tonight.

Thank you.