City Council - Regular Meeting

But you don't get alternative. You had to go down to ABC first and plead your case. And what happened with the church? Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's city council meeting here in Greenwood, Arkansas on this Monday, May the 4th, 2026 at 7:02 p.m. Miss Derry, would you call the role for us, please? Certainly. AC Brown is absent. Rob Maker here. Tim here. Roger Rainwater here. Steve. Rod Powell here.

Thank you very much. If everyone would please stand, we'll begin our meeting tonight with a prayer led by brother Ronnie Dal First Baptist Church and followed by our pledge of allegiance by Chief Stuart Bryant.

Let's pray. God, we thank you for all your many blessings. Thank you that we get to enjoy those blessings every single day. And Lord, we pray for tonight. Thank you for this council, for the work that they do, the commitment that they have made to this community. Thank you for mayor and for everyone that serves in this community. God, we just ask your blessings on them. Continue to to protect them as they work and as they serve this community well. Lord, I pray for this meeting tonight that you give wisdom, direction, and guidance to decisions that are made. And we give you all all the praise and glory. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amence 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. Thank you. You may be seated.

I'd like to before we go any further, I want to announce tonight that Mr. Brown, Councilman Brown's not able to be here tonight due to a death in the family. His uh sister-in-law passed away, I guess, today. That right, Chief? Friday. Okay. So, we might keep the the Brown family in your in your thoughts and prayers for sure. Uh, moving on to approval of minutes for the March 2nd, 2026 regular city council meeting. If council has has an opportunity or take an opportunity to look at those over Mayor, I'll make a motion to adopt those. A motion and a second to adopt. Mr. Maker, yes. Mr. Terry, yes. Mr. Rainwater, yes. Mr. Tedford, yes. Mr. Pal,

yes. Thank you very much. Uh, recognitions and acknowledgements of the Greenwood High School band. I'm sorry. Was there something else?

Me? I didn't. I did. Oh, Danielle said hurry up. I'm just telling you. I'm just trying to move. So, uh, Greenwood High School band won sweep stakes at state. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but fantastic. Fantastic deal. I'm sorry. Straight one. Straight ones across the board. Very good. Uh, that's all I have. Does anybody else know of any accomplishments? Sorry. The choir.

The choir did the same. So, a quick story about that. I was in the in the Greenwood High School choir one time because they didn't have anybody else to to do it. And we were on a bus in Little Rock or somewhere and we were getting ready to come home and we we had won what we thought we were the grand champions of all the world. and we were yelling out number one in every bus we passed, we're number one. So there was a lot of ones given out. Uh so anyway, that's my choir story. Love it. Yeah. Um so anything else that anybody's aware of that's been accomplished this week or this month? Think Tom made it back from Little Rock. That's an accomplishment. Nice.

Appreciate. So, so Tom was there all day, came here tonight and going back tonight or in the morning. Okay. So, appreciate you coming doing that. What' you say? I'm sorry. Oh, the fine arts did the junior. That was me. Yeah, they did. I did not attend. I'm sorry. Heard it was very successful and cool. I did get a t-shirt out of the deal. So, that was good. If you don't know, Brms opened. I don't know if you've heard. Uh, I have the record. And if anybody here can can beat me, Mr. Terry, what do you want? How many times you been? Well, oddly enough, I've only been twice. However, on opening day, I had the first official shake made. Oh,

that was paid for. But that was paid for. Yeah, I know y'all went out there for Yeah, that's key here because I went out the day before and got some free ice cream. But, uh, so I've got 10 visits. So I'm telling somebody on the oh before the weekend I had eight and I was telling somebody on the phone that and my wife was in the truck with me and she act like she she goes what are you eight? What is wrong with you? I said half of them were you right because I'd go eat lunch and then she calls and want ice cream. So uh very busy excited about all that. They Here's the best news I've heard in a long time about anything like that. They hired 65 employees. Wow.

For bronze. I know probably a high percentage of those are part-time, but and they're all kids, most of them. But that is awesome. Yeah. Very cool. Greenwood kids. A lot of them.

I know a lot of them. Some of them I don't. So, uh, yeah. The ones that know you, this is what I found out real quick. I know we got a meeting. So, you go out there and if they're working the window, they have been trained and they don't say, "Hey, mayor. Hey, Doug." They are like, "Thank you for coming. Here's your food." Blah, blah, blah. But if I go in and it's the same thing, but there's one young man out there that's like, "How many times have you been here?" And then he goes, "Welcome to Bronze, the best ice cream in the world." And he gets into his little his little stick. So I I think a majority probably are, but I'm sure there's some kids from other places. But I thought that was incredible that they've got 65 employees. So

I I know they've done a little bit of work on the turn lane stuff, but I'm thinking the chief, I don't know how they've had any kind of accidents at all. I was worried. Well, knock on wood. Unfortunately, there was one, but it was on 71 today. Yeah. On the light. People are being very very careful and cordial out there. The Yeah. Yeah.

The uh the striping on that concrete entrance and exit out of and into is going to be done tonight. We we have it scheduled for tonight. time striping gonna go out there and stripe that to give make sure you are in the right lane doing the right thing. But it's it's been I've been out there and all I'm not joking 10 times. One night I sat there in the rain for 35 minutes with hail. I'm think I'm stuck here so I can't go anywhere. But everybody was just patient, careful, and did what they're supposed to do. So yeah, it's great. Okay, moving on. uh committee reports you have I think and again I'm sorry I did not check as late today but there's been a few that were turned in late or not or do we have them

we don't we don't have a waterway department okay we have as always if you have any questions and you don't have any answers let me know let let uh we don't have street or street okay or laptops oh where's our laptop um well y'all haven't been using them and I just didn't do it this time because email reports to check your email. She took them away from you. I figured, you know, you haven't been looking at them and I've emailed them to you. So, you just look on your computer. I think on eBay, eBay. Oh, the computer. Yeah, that's funny. That's cute. Thank you, Mr. Councilman Ted for

Okay. Uh, citizens forum. Uh, we have no one that has signed up tonight. So, I'm assuming most of us are us in the crowd. So, Ronnie, did you want to do a sermon? You're good. Okay. That's right. We don't not by the time I get through talking about bronze. Uh, nobody signed up for assistance form financial report. Mr. Marsh, by the way, our well, Tom's getting the microphone. We have a we have a department head meeting every Monday of this of the council meeting. And let me just say this morning's meeting went very smooth and rather quickly. Tom wasn't here. Go ahead. That was supposed to be funny.

I would have bet on your Well, he did leave in the middle of it, so that helped. There you go. Yeah. Okay. It's good to know. So, because you don't have your tablets, I know you'll be paying attention to the screens because there's some important stuff that I want to be sharing. First thing is I'm going to show you what are the batteries down on that mic again. That's why we couldn't hardly hear you.

We want the people of YouTube I like the old Atari cartridge. Blow on them. It'll work better for a minute. I used to take it easy. There's some expense there. Oh, okay. We thought that Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Yep. I was just giving you my mayor speech.

Okay. First thing I want to show you is the city's tax sales tax uh tax distributions as compared to other cities. And you'll notice we hold the uh dubious distinction of being the only one in the city in the city's list that percent change was negative. And that tells you two things. One, you can assume that there was some activity in the rebates. But the good news to what you see there though is that that gives you some indication that there should be some positive movement in the county sales tax because everybody showed very good results. Now Barling's number is not up there because it's astronomical. Um the percentage would be not relevant because they were not able to collect. I think that was their last month that that occurred in their three months where they didn't get to collect city sales and use tax last year. So, they're not being reported as far as that's concerned. However, um that I wanted to at least show you that what the taxes did as far as the county I wanted to preface it by saying the benefit to the county sales tax was change same month over previous month was 5.26% 26% and our cumulative growth is 3.93%. That's huge as far as the county was concerned as far as the negative amount that we had in the previous 2025 period. As far as the city is concerned, we are down to 7.43% as a result of our 41% negative. However, that's actually very good uh from where we were a year ago. So, it's almost where like we're flipping the script. As far as the advertising and promotion, they also had a good uh period of 4.64% increase same month over same year month. And uh year-to- date cumulative growth was up 5.8% for the advertising and promotion

revenue. So, those are all good numbers. As far as the city sales and use tax is concerned, this is what I was talking about as far as flipping the script. Last year we were negative 8.7 uh 8.31. We're at 7.43 uh this year. So it's positive versus the negative. And it has a lot to do with um the rebates which I'll show you in a second. Now that amount for the city sales and use tax of 7.43, I want to show you exactly what that does to the departments. 2% is what the city uh receives. That 2% includes the traffic relief bond. So we gained $94,000 from the previous year's revenues. And remember, we're budgeting 0%. So that 94,000, how does that relate to the departments that benefit from that? Well, the one and three/4 tax is 82,565 increase. So water sewer gets a little bit under 48,000 and then just a little bit under 12,000 for each of the three departments. park, street, and fire. And that's your 82565. Traffic relief also gets a quarter of 1% or quarter of a percent, which is 11 point 11,795 as well. And that makes up your 94 for your 2%. So there's there's what the department gains have been as a result of four months worth of activity and growth in the city sales and use tax, which we did not budget for. And the reason that I'm still cautioning you is we're only through four months of the year. it's a a third of the year. So, you're looking at um potential downfalls somewhere down the road that could impact that. So, that's cautiously um used. I would not recommend you go out and spend all of that right now in the first quarter because while that's in the bank and it is there, we still have

uh twothirds of a year or eight months of the year still left to go. As far as your data trend, this is what I was talking about for the rebates. April showed $10,113. Uh, however, I do want to point out down at the bottom for the four months, we've had $62,693 worth of rebates. But the four month from the previous year, we were at 124,000. So, what you're seeing is a percent rebate to the distribution of 4.6 six this year so far where last year this at this same point we were at almost 10%. So this is still tracking very favorable. Here's the graph that shows where we are tracking. As long as we stay in this 0 to 20,000 level as far as the rebates are concerned, we should fare fairly well for the year, much lower than we were in 2025. So we should see growth in the city sales and use tax. That's my optimistic view. As far as the uh sales tax audit adjustment is concerned, did the same thing. We're at 0.22% uh versus a four-month comparison of 73%. So last year, we were at 9,02. This year so far, it's only 3,000. So a third of what we had in the four months from 25 is what we're experiencing in 26. So, seven uh average audit adjustment per month is only $766 and that flows pretty minor to what the last couple of years have been. So, as far as the tax is concerned, this is the city of Greenwood's uh sales tax adjusted for the rebate and audit the city sales and

use tax. So if you took the 041% that's how much the um rebate and the audit adjustments impacted us because it would have been 2.10 growth had we not had the rebate. Now when you look at the distribution and what that does for taxable sales the collected tax before adjustments would be 1.88% 88% or 1 million3 more this year in taxable sales volume or dollars versus what we collected through taxable sales after adjusting for rebate and audit for 2025. On the surface again that looks good. However, what I want to point out is that is you know the uh actual inflation rate is 2.5. So that's still being driven more by the cost of the items that are purchased and not by the sheer volume of increased purchases. So while that's good in a way, I told you that anytime a cost of a product goes up, it does benefit us on city sales and use tax. However, at some point there's a diminishing return in that people will stop buying as much. And that's what's we're seeing here. I would like to see this number above 2.5%. All right, county sales tax. This is the 3.9% well above what we were last year at this point. 1.84. Um we uh are a driver of that if you will from um what the county we're a mirror of the county, an image of what all the cities within the county because it's distributed per capita. So, we're benefiting this year from one share, one share all uh 3.93% is good. It's still creeping upward and that's positive with a zerobased budget. As far as the county sales tax, what does that mean for the departments that

are you you guys control the distribution on? It's $33,415 increase year-to- date gain for county sales tax. And that's distributed by each of the departments, planning, police, animal control, parks and wreck, and fire. And you'll see the dollar amounts right over here as to how much they've gained as a result of the growth. 17,000 for police, 9,000 for fire, 30,03 for parks, animal controls, almost uh 1,200, and then 23 for planning. So growth is good. As far as the combined, this is where I'm saying we're flipping the script because combined sales taxes, when you look at county and city together, we're at 5.92% growth when you look at all sales taxes all in and with the exception of advertising and promotion. And you see we were at negative 5.62 and this year we're so far for the same period positive 5.92. So we just flipped the script. As far as the advertising and promotion is concerned, 4.64% is uh collections for the month of April of 192 versus 184 of the previous April of 2025. So cumulative we're at 5.8% and that equates to a total of $72,225 so far for the first four months of 2026. Reason I point that out is for the graphs. April, however, uh looks very positive. It's a very good month as far as the growth of sales tax is concerned. 19294 is the highest uh amount that we've had since 2024 and the highest overall for the last nine years for the month of April. Now, that's not totals. That's just April. So, that's good. And then the average monthly AMP tax

collection. Now this would be the average for each of the 72,000 divided by four months. That's 18,056. So it is on a downtrend as far as the average collections are concerned. These are yearly amounts and this is just for the four months. So this number will fluctuate up and down depending on what's collected for the next eight months. But I do want to show you that if we if we roll this as an average for the rest of the year and say that we're not going to go above a 18,056 collection for each of the months of the eight months remaining, you're going to end the year down negative -2.29% or 2.29% down. It's in a little bit better than we were last year at this time. I don't anticipate that happening for a lot of reasons. One is bronze being open, but um you got to remember that bronze is pulling from others right now except for the volume that comes down 71 that would not otherwise come to Greenwood. And also Brahms City sells in used tax benefit far more than the UMP because they don't they sell more than just prepared food and beverage. They sell marketplace products too prepackaged. And as far as the cash flow is concerned, we started the year at 12,196. We decreased the month of April 638,000 for the year. We're down almost 3/4 of a million. So at the current fund balance, all funds was 11,422 as of April 30th. That's down 6.35% on a budget of being down 60.34%. And the majority of that is stemming from city uh the water sewer department's major expenditures that they're having this year. So a lot of this money is in their coffers. As far as the capital expense is concerned, we have an 11,351,000

budget for capital allin for the city. We've spent 2,96,000. Water has spent 1.8 million of their 8 8 million which is 21% 18% has been spent so far but they're 21% of their budget. And then for the rest of the city which is the uh city uh general and the street department it's u 9.08% or 222,000 spend. That's actually very good because at this point in previous years we were well under we were single digits at this point.

As far as the contingency fund is concerned, I told you I would be giving you these numbers every month. Uh the contingency balance as of February was 14% up from the actual reserve. At 331 it was 11% and right now it's 1%. Um payroll hit at the end of the month. That was one of the big things. So, and there's a three pay month in the month of um in the month of May. So, that had a significant impact on this. So, we are still positive 10,000, but we're right along the balance reserve balance. Realize that in order for any kind of a trigger point to happen, this number of 746 or this number of 756 has to get to 671 before the trigger happens. And that is it.

Any questions, comments for Tom? Thank you as always, sir. It's Thank you, Tom. Looking good. Appreciate that. And again, thank you for coming back from Little Rock today. Very good. Uh, agenda additions. We didn't have any this morning. I think Councilman Terry has one. Yes. It's in the packet. I think Charlotte's got it in there. There's number seven. We're going to call it the ordinance opposing bash grass from applying repeal. Did I say ordinance? Did I say that? It's a resolution. Yeah. Yep.

Okay. So, that's number seven, gentlemen. Everybody's good with that. Any anybody else have a an addition? If not, we will move on. number. Oh, let me do this real quick while we've got such a huge crowd. So, it's been it's been brought to my attention and I'm not laughing. It's tomorrow. I mean, Wednesday is National Meeting Minutes Day, in case you weren't aware. Sure. That's what it says right here. I'm not making it up. Is it the sixth or

uh the sixth? Wednesday. So during professional municipal clerk's week, Miss M Miss Derry got this in the mail. America celebrates the first ever national meeting minutes day on Wednesday. Kind of joking a little bit, but if you don't if you're not aware of how many minutes Miss Derry takes, it's a lot. Let me just say that. Many, many hours. It's a lot. So we we appreciate her doing that. And but here's the here's the thing now. So to mark the day, every municipal clerk in America gets a gift. full access to software that drafts your meeting minutes for you. So, you're no longer needed. I know it. I can we can just do that. I can go ahead and retire. It's free. It's unlimited. There's no sign up. There's no credit card. No obligation. Uh so, she said, "Make fun of it." I am. I am, but I'm not.

I mean, so nerds. It's kind of cute. Meeting minutes. So, there you go. Very exciting. Maybe someday there will be a city attorney day. I don't know. Maybe. Every day. Every day is city attorney day. Maybe we need to consult legislature to get that going.

Maybe. So, all right. Moving on to number one under old unfinished business is police animal services ordinance repealing replacing ordinance number 23-11 animal service rules and regs on its third reading. It was been has been tabled previously. Chief, some of the Anything changed since the

I think I know Mr. or Councilman Miker table this last month just to make sure that there was a full everybody was here to discuss it and and do what they needed to do with it. So this is third. Yeah. Well, unfortunately we're not all here. I don't know if that right. There's still not We still have one missing. I hate to keep last time. True.

What's the pleasure, gentlemen? I'll make a motion to put this on for the third reading for title only. Second. Have a motion to second. Mr. Maker, no. Mr. Terry, yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Tedford. Yes. Mr. Pow. Yes.

Passes by majority. An ordinance repealing and replacing ordinance 2311 and all other ordinances in conflict therewith authorizing the regulating the keeping and control of companion domestic animals creatures in the city of Greenwood Arkansas and for other purposes. Thank you chief. Thank you chief. Thank you gentlemen. Um number two uh on the old unfinished is ordinance repealing ordinance 227 amending others removing planning jurisdiction third reading. Mr.

Michael now YouTube can hear me. You want me to restate it? Restate it all. Sure. Just for fun. Mayor, council,

this ordinance is on for third reading. Uh there have been no changes during this process. Uh I request that uh we get this ordinance passed so we can conform to state law. I was reading in the last municipal magazine that I received maybe a day or two ago, some cities have left this so they could use uh AMP commissioners out from outside of the city that they you could use them in the planning jurisdiction. Interesting. But I don't think that affects us. I don't think so. Maybe not currently on Maybe not currently, but it might in the future. Maybe not currently, but it might in the future. I mean, I don't care one way or the other, but

I was just wondering if it affected anybody. But no, we've not had any I'd rather pass it than anybody that I'd rather our people that sit on the planning commission live in the city limits. So, or at least do business. I make a motion we put this on for the second reading by title. Third, third reading by title. Second motion. Second, Mr. Maker. Yes. Mr. Terry. Yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Tedford. Yes. Mr. Powell. Yes.

It's unanimous. An ordinance amending the code of ordinances of the city of Greenwood, Arkansas to remove references to municipal, extr territorial, or planning jurisdiction to repeal ordinance 2217 establishing a planning jurisdiction area to conform local law to act 314 of 2025 and for other purposes. Thank you, Mr. Michaels. And you are up again number three on new business ordinance reszoning annex property at Jones Street from R1 to R2 on its first reading. in your packets.

Thanks, sir. Pictures. I like pictures when we're doing this kind of thing.

It is way easier. Here, I'll hold mine up. This is a request to reszone from R1 to R2 uh for property located along Jones Street. Property we recently annexed at the last council meeting. Our intentions were to have the the reszone associated with annexation and it just got missed out of that annexation document. So this is corrective in nature. Uh and that would be the reason why we have it on for emergency clause. It was listed on the posting and publishing for the annexation. We received no complaints on it. So again, it's just it's corrective in nature. It does fit as a transitional zone between the residential R1 areas on Capertton uh loop and the Oaks edition to the commercial areas along uh Center Street.

So So how was notification made for the people that live in the area that were We're putting this as multif family. It was posted and published. It was posted during theation. Yes. So, how long have they had long been posted? Oh, yeah. February. Okay. Quite a while. So, they've had plenty of time to realize what's going on. Yes. Yeah. It's gone through the planning commission and then through city council for annexation. Hey, the property on West Denver and Nashville that's in the flood plane. That prevented that guy from doing something, correct? Yes. Is is the other not in the flood plane?

There is a portion of it that's not in the flood plane, but there is enough property there to to develop without altering the flood plane. Uh our ordinance prohibits any fill material or development activity in the special flood hazard area. U but that property was raised years ago. Yeah. And it brought it up out of the flood plane enough where they can develop it without needing to fill.

Any further questions or discussion? Now, part of this C2 reasonzoning that's our the only uh reason that we're doing. Okay. It's just the R2. It's R1 to R2. Yes. Okay. So, you're not touching what would be Jagger's there? No, that's that still zone commercial even though it's on the other side of the creek. Correct.

Okay. We're doing this reszone by partial number only instead of legal description. Those legal boundaries over there were kind of funny with that annexation. Some of the annexation overlap uh with pre-existing city boundaries. Have plans been submitted for what's going to be built there? No. No. There's there's been a few proposals but nothing uh submitted formally. What's the need for R2? Uh the proposal is for duplexes at the moment. Uh they can fit two maybe three duplexes on Jones Street frontage.

Tim Tim's not here, is he? Tim is here. I hate rental property. Is he? Oh, Tim Posie. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's what I was gonna if you wanted if you want to just say it or

I think that's been discussed. Right. Okay, good. Do we have all that's right away? Okay. Because I know there's a big line that comes underneath the creek and they y'all just did a big repair.

So far, everybody's on the same page, right? Yeah. Yeah. I believe the only sewer that's on property is going to be in the northern corner of the southern R2 lot. And then there is sewer that is on West Denver and Jones at the intersection. Uh there's not any sewer through the center of that property. There is water uh water lines, water manes coming down from the tanks up above that come through. I think that's on the south south southern side of this property. I'll make a motion to put it on for the first reading by title only.

Second. I have a motion to second. Mr. Mer. Yes. Mr. Terry. No. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Tedford. Yes. Mr. How? Yes. Passes by majority. An ordinance amending ordinance number 2310 for the purpose of reszoning certain property on Jones Street, amending the official zoning map of the city of Greenwood, Arkansas declaring an emergency and for other purposes. Do are you requesting an emergency clause? Yes. I mean, you might have said that. Yeah, I did. That's okay. Can I mention that I would like to add at least one of these pictures of reference to the ordinance? Absolutely. You want to add that as an exhibit? Yes, please.

Do you just need I don't need the just not the satellite. Just the Okay, just parcel map, please. We'll do.

Excuse me. Do I hear motion waiting? Second, third. First reading was as far as I was going.

Okay. I I just had a question. What was the what was the reason that we need to put it on for an emergency clause? It was supposed to be attached with the annexation ordinance to reszone those parcels when they came into the city uh to R2 and we had requested to wave the second and third reading. We did not request emergency clause with the annexation. Uh the property owner, the applicant was under the impression that that was going to happen. That was a fault of mine. I missed the the reszone on the annexation ordinance. So to correct that, that's why I'm requesting the uh the emergency clause. But since he's not submitted really any plans at this point, is there really any need to he he's waiting to submit plans until it's reszoned. He can't submit anything until it's reszoned appropriately.

That just seems backwards to me. He submitted conceptual ideas which have changed a few times. Some one of them was three or four single family houses. The most recent one was duplexes. Um, if he wanted to do a single family house, we wouldn't have to reszone it, but to do the the latest proposal, we would have to, which would also allow for single family if he chooses to go that route. But the the original master plan that that's R1, right? I mean, we're just we're changing the master plan to R2.

Yes. Yeah, you were correct. Typically you you want some kind of buffer in between residential and commercial and this provides that and it it also is a way of showing that we don't have a general hatred of multif family in case somebody says it that you know accuses us of that at some point in time says you you have a history of not approving these. So this is fairly lowhanging fruit. I have a history of it, but I always lose. I'm a white pick and fence mow my lawn swings that kind of guy for Greenwood. That's my That feels like home to me.

Not refrigerators on the front porch and five cars and a broke down bike and some sorted u drug house or whatever, murders, whatever else goes on with it. I'm sure as it's always mentioned, they intend to keep this highend, but with its location so close to our central business business district and being located on our walking trail, I assume that they're going to u try a little harder to retain. They always say high-end. They always say that

we always get high-end mini storage and high-end duplexes and high-end triplexes and forplexes. This this one won't be able to hide in a residential area though. It'll be out in the open. I feel a little obligated here to mention that recent triplex construction out east of town looks as well as it did that it was promised and and agree just not every duplex draws that. And so times are changing. Gentlemen,

they were uh garage duplexes. I didn't mention that. I just think it's important to to reiterate what you said, Mr. Tedford, that we don't come across as banning multif family. I think everybody's homes different, but I I mean, I don't disagree what you're saying, but I think we have to be receptive to some of this. Also, there's plenty of single family homes that are renting rented that have the refrigerators and the I live on a street that's

maybe one of the worst in town and you know because you drive it every day too, sir. And and none of that is apartments or duplexes. I believe the square footage per unit was somewhere between 1500 and 1,800. I'm grasping, but I believe that was the square footage per unit. So there were larger duplexes with garages, but I mean what we're reszoning for is the options for the applicant to apply and and at that time if I my ducks in a row is the time that we can be discretionary on what that looks like and Right. Okay.

What was this? There was is it R1 that all annex property comes in as? Yes. I remember we've talked about this a million times. Yes. And then it has to be changed wherever it's at. Yes, that's correct. At one time we looked at an orientation of a duplex where it would give the appearance of a of single family

and then the parking is in between on the side. So I proposed that to this individual as well and he was open to it. He was open to a drive access at one end and rear entry even. So it was just it looked like a you know the back of the house would be the front of the house and it has no driveway, no garage doors. Looks nice. He was immunable to all of our suggestions. We ought to look at possibly codifying something like that and just putting it in as a recommendation or whatever. I don't know that you can require that, but right,

it's a gives it an R1 look. There's a place in Conway, I think it's called the village, but it has that same I mean, they look like cottages. Yeah, cottages. And I mean, it's beautiful, but they're they're duplexes and you wouldn't know it. If the emergency clause is too concerning, uh, if we could request to wave the second, third reading, that would at least give him a a 30-day notice to get some plan his plans going.

Well, you'd need to adopt it, too. And then the 30 days, but you're Yeah. Anything forward? Yeah. I'm just adding not just that, but that'd be 60 days then. Well, I'd make a motion to uh wave the second and third reading. Second. Motion to second to wave second third reading. Mr. Mer. Yes. Mr. Terry. Yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Tedford. Yes. Mr. Powell. Yes. Unanimous. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Hunter. Mr. Michael. Mr. Hunter. Motion to adopt. Second. Motion to adopt. Second. him make that. Yes. Yeah. I'm not for it, but we're gonna do it.

I was like, okay, well, we've tried. Might as well move it along. Mr. Maker. Yes. Mr. Terry. Yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Tedford. Yes. Mr. Pow. Yes. Yes. Right. It don't matter. I can vote. No one. Yeah. Do whatever. Thank you, gentlemen. Uh, moving on. Uh, number four is finance resolution adding assistant director parks to 2026 operating budget or Mr. Casey. I'm not sure. Okay.

Just a resolution to add a new position to our department. Um, we've had some personnel changes in the department that allowed us to add this position. It's more of a admin um, position for us. And the biggest advantage for it being added so promptly is that it gives this person the opportunity to manage the summer camp that's coming up in June. Gives them an opportunity to learn what's going on at the summer camp so that next year they're able to lead it. That's the only reason for the quick timeline. Um, it is net neutral. So, they will be paid the same amount as the person that we've let go from our department.

What did the person you let go do? He was maintenance. Who's doing that now? The two guys that we had had previous part of the reason that he was let go. So, how many how many full-time folks are in parks? Sorry. How many full-time employees are in parks? Four. three. Right now we're adding a fourth.

You had four. We had four. Now we have three. We're about to add another person to get back to four. And then I figure next year there'll be some big $67,000 pay raise for this position on next year's budget. That's not my intent. No, I'm just saying that because we have this hiring, not a freeze, but we've we're hemorrhaging money and we're tax dollars or whatever, and everybody's wanting an assistant from somebody else now all of a sudden. And

I I have no intention of it being my assistant. They're not going to be doing my work. They're not going to be completing my POS. They're not going to This person will not be stapling my reports. This will be an its own independent position. And what will the person be doing in particular? Managing the summer camp in June. That's their primary responsibility. Managing the pavilion, the reservations with the pavilion, and then helping with the events. Freedom Fest. Will that get something off Danielle's plate? No, unfortunately not. I thought she was one of the schedule the

senior center. Yes, the senior center. But help that in the past. Yeah. I mean, everybody kind of pitches that. If Casey doesn't happen to be here, Danielle addresses and I was just excited it was something getting off the pl. That's one of the bullet points she complains about having so many things to do.

My my question is if they're going to be paid the same, then why change the title? Why can you not just change the the job responsibilities for that position? because I can't ask someone that is a maintenance person to work all the administrative. Also, this is a salaried position and the the position previous was an hourly position. The reason that it's salaried is because they're managing 13 vol or not volunteers but 13 team members through the summer camp.

So, you you've got enough work after June and and that to keep this person full-time busy 100%. Is it something that I mean is the scheduling the senior citizens there something that we could put under that as well? It's not really park. No, we're we're putting that under we're putting that under Aaron who Okay. who works out front giving her another another duty. Yeah, it's not parks. Remind me senior citizens senior question.

So your two maintenance people, you've had three and now you're down to two. You going to be able to do all the maintenance on all the parks? Absolutely. Y'all just y'all restructure the mowing stuff, didn't you? responsibilities or no between you and the streets for parks mowing or are your two maintenance guys do the mowing? I thought there was something y'all did about sharing some mowing somewhere or something since we we'll help each other out. Yeah, if it's necessary then we kind of work together to do that. I think whenever he's got two real and he still has a contract with mowing bill park and the square and the square. Yeah. with the company.

If anything, to be honest with y'all, it is more economic these day. It's more economical these days for us to farm out the mowing. If for some reason these two guys get overwhelmed,

I'll start pitching parks on the folks that take care of Bell Park in the square. It's less hours for us. It's less uh possibility of an accident happening. We don't have to maintain the mowers. We don't have to pay for the gas in the mowers. We don't have to take care of the responsibility of just having that extra equipment. The asset light approach is honestly just a much better way of taking care of the way I know of parks departments are approaching it even throughout the country. And then what do you do with your maintenance people?

They're full-time maintenance, but that's not my approach right now. I'd rather have those two guys mowing. I'm just saying if for some reason they get overwhelmed, it would not be a big deal for us to take a couple parks that's currently under the responsibility and let someone else take care of it. Hey, does that also remind me so with with the high school and the students have to have so many hours of volunteer service before they graduate? Do we have any kind of program or we got a person coordinating that with the city? If a high school student wants to get community service for that requirement, do we have somebody coordinating that.

I know that I'm authorized to do that as well and Danielle and we we we have done that in the past on occasion. We and kind of what he just said, it's also that's a good program, but it doesn't always work out in the end. Yeah. And we and they're some of them are restricted to do certain things

with the way the years have lined up. We're just now getting to where students are eligible to start earning those hours because a lot of students whenever a lot of students whenever that was enacted, they had already had hundreds of service hours to go towards it. Well, I know I'm constantly asked about different organizations and where they can get service hours because I've got two in high school right now. So, Yeah. So, I think they go take them too. They'd rather go to Oregon Bron.

If I had a 15 or 16 year old that wanted Well, they've got to have 75 hours of community service before they graduate high school. I put a little off topic but kind of related but I've got I'm teaching the citizenship and community merit badge and I've got 20 kids in there and they got to have eight hours a piece so that's 160 hours and we're going to start it in June but they want to work out on the trails but your girls can come. They've been on other projects. Are you a girl scout leader? Girls can't leave.

What kind of outreach do we do to the schools to solicit those type of things? Uh Brandon Tate is the commissioner of the parks commission or the sorry he's the head of the parks commissioner. Commission. The chair. Thank you. of the parks commission. And he's also a counselor at the school. So he we're able to interface between us and the school pretty seamlessly. So, have y'all discussed that sort of thing? He's the one that gave me the form to sign up. It's my understanding that if a student comes in asking for volunteer hours, we're the first place he sends them.

And same for Miss Dixon, Jolen Dixon.

The guidance counsel I'll make a motion we pass this resolution. I I do think Well, I don't know, but as far as the senior thing goes, if we're renting them out for like the Bell Park bill, I guess fall under the parks activity center. Nothing comes out of park's budget for that.

It's all general. Generals their point of contact. insurance.

Anyway, I'll continue with making a motion to approve the resolution. We have a motion. Second, Mr. Maker. Hey, so before I vote, I want to say this though, just I do read the the committee reports and this position is supposed to start on when? Uh, it was they'll start 5:18. Yep. So, have we already done interviews and Yes. So, we're So, we selected someone for this position? Yes. So, we're we've already hired somebody and now we're doing the resolution. Well,

it seems to me we kind of got the cart before the horse. The parks commission is in control of their employees statutoily and they already approved this and this is a formality to bring it into our budget. I just think that this is probably a step that should have been done before that. I mean if it's a formality it's a formality but I mean good point agree that we do it all the time. I mean it's kind of like hiring somebody and then after the fact we got to pay them and then find out they're related to somebody. Well, I've been saying that 20 years. There's been a million times they've brought something to us that was already bought to approve.

Mr. Baker. Yes. Duly noted. Mr. Terry. Yes. Mr. Rainwater. No. Mr. Tedford. Yes. Mr. Powell. Yes. Passes by majority. Thank you. You're up. I think I'm up here again. Okay. Uh on that one number five is that you salary matrix. Yeah. It's both. Oh, it's part. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So again, yeah. So resolution amending salary matrix various positions. I knew it was into the back. Huh? Should I fade into the back?

Uh pro. Yeah. Let's let Teresa, are you going to Well, no. So, it's self-explanatory and I said that if they have any questions then address them. But there's not necessarily a really presentation. It's that the water wastewater commission and the parks commission have both voted to do this. So, I mean they are commissions. We have section four there that does say and addresses the fact that they're commissions that they govern their employees. This is a formality once again to bring it into the salary matrix so that we have one document that shows all the salaries. Transparency to the public. public health record that somebody can say, I want a list of all of your salaries. Here it is.

So that's what we're doing with this document. Of course, is the council's document. And so for me, it would make it really hard if we did not have the commission's salaries in this document. So I really try hard to advocate for this to m maintain and be the same, you know. Let let me ask a question. Who determines these salaries? How how are these determined? I can't speak to that. Maybe Teresa knows the process. I wasn't there that night either. Um I think Tanya and Tim worked on this to come up with their amounts.

Sure. What we'd like to present to you guys tonight is the water wastewater department salary matrix that was approved by the commission Thursday night. This new matrix was given to us by our directors after their review and it reflects what they believe they need to hire new staff, move talent up the ranks, and keep the valuable long-term folks working until they're ready to retire. Um, I think we've discussed this through maybe over the years since I've been on the commission that we've got a lot of great employees, but they are reaching retirement age. We don't have the staff coming up yet. And what our directors have discovered is that our starting salary just did not make it. um it if if we hired somebody they weren't quality or they didn't stick with us. The other thing that we've discovered is that our competitors which are James Fork and Miltown pay more than we do and they're poaching some of our best staff. So, in addressing a lot of the issues that the directors had, the commission asked them to present to us what they felt they needed to still be competitive and get our staffing up. Um, I will tell you they were very conservative. The commissioners had even talked about allowing a little bit more. Um, but they they kept it under control. Um, we're probably looking at a three-year matrix here. barring something like another COVID or or or anything else coming up, but should take us it gives them the option to gives them a little more

leeway as to what they need to do to keep keep things moving. Um, we've got some great directors in the water in department and we have as commissioners, we have a lot of confidence in how they're going to handle this. It is also in our budget. Um, and I think Tom might be able to discuss a little bit more of when we reviewed this um, kind of his his thoughts and and directions there. Um, it was considered when we set our rate structure. We knew we were going to have to do something. I know I've talked to some of the commissioners individually a little bit and told them our problems and this is what some of them have asked us to do is look at the overall matrix and how we can keep going not keep coming back nickel and dimeming and asking for this position. The other thing we did in the matrix is we simplified it. Um there were we had a gazillion different steps. We've taken that out simplified it. Um we've instituted some um incentives because we're going to look we're looking at probably once our uh next uh population study comes up, we're pro we're going to be in another requirement as far as as licensing. So, we want to go ahead and start moving those guys up because if we wait till then and have to rush to get them uh licensed where they need to be, we're going to be, you know, behind the eightball. Um, our departments are getting hit with a lot of bureaucracy, which is causing us to have to, you know, do do a lot more. You know, I know Tim and Tanya both are getting kind of bombarded with new reports that have to be out. We've got a dam stud coming up. Uh that's got us really concerned and

we've got to have the staff to to be able to get this going. And you know, we're the only department that has to run in this city unless you want to turn it over to the state and let the state run it. So, we're trying our best to try to keep it keep it even and going. So, I'll answer any questions you can. We've got several people here that can answer.

I do want to point out uh the asterk on these uh applies to the asterk of this little um additional thing on page three. So, all the things with asterisks on the you know departments that applies there. That's what I how I indicated that. And also this with the copy stamped is what existing is. So you could compare the numbers. So yes, Teresa, how how how does this matrix compare to the Arkansas Municipal League salary survey of comparable?

I I can't say that we even considered that. Okay. What we were looking at I mean I think we're probably still very low. Um but I think what we were looking at is our being reasonable. You know, we know that things are tight even in everything. And um I would say the average Tom probably 10% overall.

Yes. Right. Your range. Yes. I mean, this is not we're going to go and raise everybody's right. But it's the problem is is, you know, you get one staff member that shows promise and and you want to start working them up the line and getting them trained. Everything kind of went stagnant and and nothing there that they could they could give to to get them promoted up and keep going. And the other thing, I'll be real honest with you, we've got a lot of staff that have been there many, many years and they've they've capped out. Well, that's not real encouraging for those. And we've got to have those guys training these other guys coming up. So, we you know, it's it's just kind of a

when you're making a decision whether to retire or not, knowing that you're making exactly what you made five years ago. Exactly. isn't in enticing to stay on and pull pull someone else up. I know. Um, recently Tim had a a staff member that he's been very uh he he just he really thought had a lot of promise and um he was very excited about his abilities. He had some experience and what he had to bring him in at was not really great. and Miltown took them for about how much more was it?

$3 an hour. $3 an hour more plus some extra other benefits. And we can't we know we can't tweak the benefits and do anything there, but if we can at least get the salary up a little bit. Um I don't know how many of you guys have hired anybody, but I've tried to hire somebody and if you tell them you're, you know, you're offering $15 an hour, they just laugh at you and walk out. So, we're probably looking around $18 to $20 an hour starting to get them in there. So, exactly how did they go about coming up with that number? Were they pulling from other cities? Yeah.

Each level on the 25.

But but I guess what I'm getting to is why 10? Why 25? I mean, what did you got for years and we knew that they had some relief for So the 10% that also we created an entry level so we could hire someone less than 18 that had no you know we could leave them in that entry level for as long as needed and so that's kind of the new position that gives us So we still

it it got us as close as possible to to our competition. So So that's what that's what I crisis and everybody's fighting for people. Everybody likes to be test every I'm so sympathetic to all of that,

but there has to be some objectivity that you pull from there. That's what I said. We we looked at our two where we're losing our guys at our competition. That's that's where we started at. But it seems to me that I mean I I get taking the entry level and moving it up 10%. But it seems to reason that you would also take the top and move it 10%. So that the whole that the whole pay scale just shifts 10%. We're so close. We're so close here that it it's not we've got to some of it we didn't go up to 25. We didn't do the top here.

No, some of the positions right those needed a bigger We also adjusted this all we also have already.

I mean we can split hairs and and look all over here. I'm talking about a sound methodology. What Rod said is the Arkansas Municipal League has done this for years and years and years for the municipalities. They can tell you approaches to coming up with that. And I think it would have been a good starting point to say, "We've got a problem. Help us address it." And I and

I read that survey for years and I've had it reported incorrectly. I did and also every city has a different hierarchy. So a waste manager at one place may not be the waste you know if you look at it and I saw this and I've seen them since 2011 people are called different things at different places. So it is hard to use that to definitively apply to your city because every city divides that up and many smaller cities one person and here we are quite a bit. So I'm saying I don't survey and it's because I'm saying that to me that when they do that formula. So

the other thing if we did that we would probably be presenting a lot larger increase here and and we were trying to be as conservative as we could.

I mean I've got I've got these two directors. I mean, they they have a lot on their plates and to sit down and to and to analyze that kind of thing in the method that you're talking about, you know, I I trust them. I I trust to know that they they know what they've got to have to get these people in here. You know, they don't have the time to to to sit down and and uh do a lot of data s research and everything and I've al I've often you you guys know I was in journalism and I saw some of these reports and things and you can make those reports kind of say whatever you want um and it's of course it's who's interpreting

of course your competition you're talking about is not in the municipality they're that's true that's true yeah you're right but but they're they wouldn't study the municipal yeah they wouldn't be a part of that right that's exactly And are you considering Miltown part of our competition? I mean, if they're stealing our employees.

So, if we're losing people to Middletown, we're probably not going to steal somebody from Ozark or Elma or places like Yeah, that's Ozark. Stole that one from Ozark. I thought she'd retired there. We got the key players. And it's a free world. I mean, really, do you steal people? I mean, if you guys want us to go back and and and add more to it or whatever, I mean, the commission told them we would be um probably okay with 20%.

Across the board, but but they they really looked hard at at at you know, what they need. So Teresa, my understanding is we're we're constrained to certain training levels certifications right now and then when we go above 10,000 it it increases about threefold.

We've got to have um operator 4 license more of that. required three licast to if we've got to repair lines, Tim is the only one licensed and he has to go out there and be there.

When did they realize we're actually over 10,000? I'm just tell it's a hardcry. Um, how many fours do we have now?

You have two threes and one four. But almost every one of those people are close to retirement age. Yeah. So, we're trying to part of it. We're not our budget. We didn't change our budget. We didn't change anything.

And this is just a range kind of thing. This we're not going to go and just give everybody If you did, then there's no motivation to go from a one to a two or two to a three because everybody's already making what they Yeah. And if if we got somebody that's not a good staff member, they're not going to go

for a year. We still have to operate within our budget. the old one was not working for us and so this is what we feel like will work and it help anyway you know like I said who knows

what percentage of your staff is over the age of 50 sewer.

Yeah, they're just a while to get them. Yeah.

Yeah. They You got one in the water office that's my age. So, thank you. I'm 50 also. I graduated with her. So, I think there's only one in there. I take exception to that thing because I'm about to say me. Tanya, I I appreciate you guys looking at this and and considering, you know, your staffing needs. I just, you know, I agree with with uh Steve. I mean, a lot of times there's got to be some objectivity and it just I mean, when we do a a rate study in our agency, we hire it out to a third party and then they do it and then they come back and they say, you know, 60% of the the fair market is at this level and you know,

and could you tell him what where we are as far as the market?

I can. I didn't participate in any decided that I would do a deep dive into numbers. One of the things that they have is that they can control their expenditures through the great But in the rate study that was done just recented. what they are going to be that's coming right negative badly for a lot of reasons. But let's look at where they are compared to what industry standards say. This is just notificating

expense. That's one of that you seem to range for. What you see here is that the 2026 budget shows the water department is operating at 22.7% as far as that ratio is concerned. Now if you can do it and you can retain quality that's great that number as low as possible. are normally about a third of your operating expense in a heavy service industry to 40%. So the operating expense for the sewer department was 28.4 There was a lot of reasons for that.

Real quick, those those numbers take into account the open positions that were going to be hired as well. Yes. Budget is everybody. Everybody Okay,

good question. So when you look at the operating expense so as far as the net operating cost just for the m expense for service industry. So let's look at the payroll as a percent of operating revenue. This is saying that for every dollar for every$100 $24 goes towards payroll. So if you look at the revenue side for that revenue for the budget for6 actual last year was 21.04 is concerned as far as percentage of the revenues. These revenues do not contain sales taxes coming solely from the sale of water service. Okay, so when we go and look at the last thing I wanted to point out was the average payroll monthly cost and that is actually a benchmark and I'm going explain why that's important in a second but you look at the 2026 budget the water department

that's actually opened This would be the considern. The first one I showed you was the average operating expense to the industry. That's suggesting that they are probably kind of lend itself to say that you could be putting yourself. So that number came out in support as far as the average operating revenues are concerned supposed to be somewhere between 18 and 25%. So they're kind of right in the middle where that number should be but they're not overly aggressive as far as the $4800 average monthly payroll salary cost per employee. The reason I like that is because this takes the anomalies out. And I'm going to show you why that's important. In this average payroll operating expense payroll maybe looking really good because there is an overend operating expenses. So you have to consider that or there's something in there that is a net effect meaning the revenue offsets the expense and it's driving that number down because you generate revenue from the san but you also pay the sanitation bill so

it's roughly about the same number. So if I am the expense that we pay for sanitation and then the amount that we generate revenue this number would have to stillow but we can see how an anomaly can so operating expenses such as fuel such as chemical supplies he knows and they've seen it those costs if it ever drops it on that I wanted you to know that. But also if you look at this last number here 4,800 is the average monthly payroll cost per employing whe of the fact that they may have shown you that and I showed that to the water commission. I'm just saying that's what

I would like to say one more thing. Um, again, the the two department head has they have their hands full and they're doing the best they can. And I'm I'm proud that they, you know, worked some extra hours to be able to get this done. The other thing is we don't have a manager. We don't have a a director or anything that can sit down and crunch these numbers and spend hours on computer and everything. Um, you know, we're all volunteers. You know, we've got our own jobs and everything. And um while crunching numbers is something that really we probably should be doing, we don't have that resource available to us right now. So our best way of managing this is trying to stay within budget and looking at what our supporting our directors and that's that's what our commission is about. We're not micromanagers. We don't tell them how to turn faucets on and what holes to dig. We we try to give them the tools that they need to to to do the best job they can. And this is how this is what they've told us they need. Thank you.

Thank you, Teresa. Questions, comments, more discussion. Council, well, I had a question, but I think Tom answered it. I know the dam's got issues and I was worried about what that's going to cost. I don't know if there's planned, capital money, five-year plan out. We're going to have to repair the dam at some point, but he did mention that salaried money and capital money were two different animals. But I don't know if that capital if there was capital money already ratoldled for dam repair. I guess is my thinks why I keep saying word bond. Well,

well, probably not. It's probably just I'm just going to complain about it, too. Let's just say that the water commission and I are working very closely for $844,000 about 800,000 800,000 per year as far as serviceion It's already we're already out.

It's leaking. looking at serious process. Did we have a savings on repairs andor upgrades to the sewer plant that we thought were going to be millions and turned out to be not millions?

No. at the beginning. We just took it off the budget because it was just in the dark and I was make the budget as realist. replacement, but that's not going to last us. We know we're going to need to know your systems in the next 20 years.

Try to these are great questions conversation. I think I think we need to get up further on with this resolution and then we can come back and because I have actually a couple of thoughts andor questions for the department heads myself when it comes to it. So, any any further on the what's in front of you on this resolution?

I've got a I I don't mind making a motion, but and I will I make a motion that we adopt this resolution, but I'd like a comment. I I think that if you really took a deep dive in it and you really looked at the Arkansas Municipal League surveys, y'all are actually low from from what I looked at. And I would like for y'all to take a deeper dive come budget time at the next year. But I know at this moment in time, you're you're trying to stop the bleeding when you're when you're losing guys to Miltown, which is a joke. And and I I understand you're trying to stop the bleeding, but I do wish you take a deeper dive and even call the Arkansas Municipal League and ask for some assistance. and uh they they they won't do a a thorough thorough job like if we hired somebody, but they will come in and and help a little bit. And I wish y'all would probably do that for the next budgetary cycle, but I think it's obviously going to be more.

But at this moment, I know y'all are trying to stop the bleeding. So, I make a motion we adopt the resolution.

Okay. And and I I just want to point out too, the Arkansas newspaper league doesn't look at customer service one and say this person should be making this much money because like you said, customer service one here does these things. Customer service there does another. They don't look at a salary range for a title. They look at job responsibilities. And if this person does this and this and this and this and this, they make this much money. It has nothing to do with the title and everything to do with their responsibilities and adding up the responsibilities and it's it could be that you are as Rod said low but the other thing is

a year a year ago in the housing market you had people bidding up on houses and and somebody would come in and pay $10,000 over asking price on a house and And they're just wild. And and if you use one example, you know, to say that you Miltown Washurn may be looking at this saying, boy, did we pay too much for this? We don't know. So, you need something objective. And I'm I'm right there with Rod. If we can't get to that point, I just don't have confidence in a 10 and a 25%. It needs to be

needs to have some validity to it and some some research. I feel the need as the league president to clarify a little bit about what you said. What municipal league does is take everything that cities send to them. They're literally taking that information that you said that from if you send it in, you're telling them what we do here and they get all of that in from cities. Danielle's the one that sends and so Yeah. No, no, I agree. And so but but to the point of everybody's unique and and so they do literally take that information from and they just average it and they average it out.

That's true. I did want to know what they do. I know how it I did it for years before you did it ever too. For 20ome years

on record on your behalf, I would say too I encourage and Trice and I have talked and and Teresa does a wonderful job of including me. I appreciate that very much with with meetings and I mean I didn't get to I'm I'm dumb. I sit here Monday night waiting for the meeting to happen and it wasn't Monday, it was Thursday. So I'm I missed it completely. Uh and so I but it's a nice meeting for me to be able to sit in the back and not have to do much and but Theresa always includes me. So that I appreciate that. But uh HR was not utilized to my knowledge because she would have told me. Uh that's the only thing that I I don't disagree with this. I think you're in the moving in the right direction. You've got to keep your people and and we talk about this for all departments for sure. Uh, and the uniqueness of it is the commission is the commission. So, they have they have the right to do this with and not like you said. I think Tanya, you didn't change your budget. You're just trying to make it make it keep your folks uh and keep them happy and and keep them employed. So, but that's my only request is that if you do anything further that you utilize our HR department because that's for that's for the city. That's not all commissions, parks, I don't care who they are. So, I understand I'm talking about I'm talking to the commission.

My only complaint about all this, if I may, is

well, we've seen this in the past where and I I am I'm I'm not the flag bearer for commissions, any of them. Uh they do good jobs. And uh sometimes I feel like that we're elected and we have to do what the commissions tell us is what everybody always says. The commission approved it as y'all have to. Well, no, we don't. We don't have to listen to the commissions. They give us their recommendation and then we can go through with it. But what I've seen in the past is we raise this director to whatever the max on the wastewater water director's position goes to 121,85350 on this resolution. And I'll be darned if the next time we come around here that's what they're want to make. That's not true.

I agree with you. Well, I understand that, but it's not unfortunately it's not your call on what you make. Exactly. But

well, we've had

Right. Exactly.

You know, that's correct. And so what that does then is it really puts a damper on all of our finances because and and it's been and it's it's citywide. It's been doing this for 15 years. We've gave ungodly amounts of payraises over the last 15 years. Uh whether they were needed or not, people got them. And so I mean I just that's the only problem I have with because I made the statement probably seven or 10 years ago just to pay everybody in the city $100,000 and don't ever come back for a pay raise again. And it was kind of tongue and cheek but we're gaining on it. So

I agree 100% correct and unfortunately our taxes aren't going up as much as pay raises. So unfortunately we're going to lose. Talk to Chief Hobbs. He loses guys all the time and he comes up here and complains all the time to us and you know same situation. I mean exactly that's that's why I'm trying to walk on thin eyes because he's going to come up here and say y'all did it for the waste water and water. Why aren't you doing it for me? We got guns. But yeah, they do generate revenue as opposed to the police. Right.

Right. Right. Exactly. I get that. I just Well, and then we just had this big rate increase and then John Q public that's sitting by the mayor out at Braum is going to say, "We have the big rate increase. Give this guy a big pay raise." The directors will not Well, I'm We just got a big rate increase. I mean, let's That's

just Yes. One of the things they considered

increase at least three years. looking study says they have to raise this the only complaint I ever get is water zero rate raising and I and I tried to explain to people and I don't know what I need to I was going to ask you and one in a moment what the state law is that supposedly has to be thisund this 110% number that's bond the covenant for bonds right uh because I I always try to tell them they have to have so much money in their budget per some sort of law or whatever forever. Yeah.

How long does that bond last forever that the

Right. Sure. Right. But anyway, people don't understand and I that's I represent the people agreement, not wastewater and the police. Absolutely not. Right. Correct. Yeah. 100%. Right.

This is where I work was the same way. We were making like 1250. I think 1250 was entry level and we just raised ours to 1802. when you step in the door, that's what you're making. But I mean, that's a factory work. Well, and and two, I get why you'd have to go so high on the max because to replace somebody as you've been saying with qualifications uh of of Tim or or Tanya, whoever, because I mean, I don't know how close you are to retiring, but you're not going to find some kid that's got all these stage four deal like Casey to to do it for $75,000. No way.

I second the motion. Oh, good. I have a motion and now a second. Mr. Mer. Yes. Mr. Terry. Yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Tedford. Okay. this is going to pass, but just as a means of communicating that a more thorough process needs to go into this to give the people who are paying the rates the confidence that you've got the numbers right. I'm sympathetic to your position. It's not going to affect the vote, but I'm going to vote against this. Okay, you vote no.

Yes. Passes by majority. Thank you. Thank you all for the discussion. One other thing, Teresa and and John, y'all that serve on the commission, you serve with very little incentive at all. And I uh we I appreciate everything y'all do. Appreciate y'all going through all the certification stuff that kept us from having to do all that, which it wouldn't ever worked. Uh just appreciate all y'all's efforts. So, I will also add those those two do not take a salary for it. They there's a stipens, but they don't take it. Y'all don't take your stip. Thank you. In that case, we're doubling your salary. Zero plus zero.

Thank you very much. I don't have any issues with you either. I I really don't I just want I just Y'all are y'all are doing great, but this is just a kind of a awareness thing that it needs to go deeper because you're asking these people to vote on those rates and you want to give them confidence that you got your number pegged. Okay. Number six, city attorney ordinance repealing ordinance number uh 08-18's solicitations and public rights of way emergency passes.

Uh yes, this is something we stumbled across amongst some employer requests and codification committee visited with the chief of police on this and there is a Supreme Court ruling from 2015 that really guts our ordinance 08-18 um that requires establishing a permit procedure and otherwise prohibiting solicitation. Uh we can't do that. So all this is is a a simple ordinance uh and My understanding we've not enforced that or operated under that in any way since I've been here. Is that correct, Chief?

To the best of my knowledge, we have never issued a on this ordinance going back to past Will Dawson's tenure and Keith Jackson's tenure. Uh, and I'm glad we haven't. It's just we stumbled across this through a foyer request and I had the city attorney and madam clerk to look at it. It's just we need to get rid of it today. Emergency. What What is Don't have it right in front of us. Prohibiting solicitation of contributions in public rightways. Does that include is this the fireman out there with their boot at the stoplight? Well,

basically the Supreme Court ruling in 2015, paraphrase, and the city attorney can correct me, but basically uh panhandling in city or city limits is constitutional under uh freedom of speech. It pretty much limits any kind of uh the only thing there is is the private property owners can ban somebody from being on the property, but if they're on the city sidewalk or city streets, they can ask for money. We can't char a permit fee for someone to exercise a right. We also can't punish someone for exercising that right if they don't get a permit. So you take those two things away from this ordinance and it's defeats its entire purpose anyway.

And also there's state law that we want to enforce. We don't want to enforce this city ordinance. We're not going to of course because it's in conflict with the Supreme Court, but there's state law on lordering that we can enforce. So this really does us Oh. So, this was a 2013 Supreme Court ruling. 2015. 2015. Read. Uh, what? We need to change that in the ordinance. It says 2013. 2013. It might be 2013. I thought 2015. Yeah, I believe. So, well, the reason I'm saying that is because this the original 0818 was passed before that. Correct.

Okay. I was trying to figure out why we were passing something that was already against the law. So, what we're saying is the Makea-Wish stuff, the the firemen with the boots, all that. They can do all that they want. Yeah. You just can't I mean, I don't condone it, but it's not up to me to condone. It's it's ruled constitutional. You know, you can't even if they're even if they're creating a safety hazard. Well, that's where that's where

ordering comes into approach from that. If we want to regulate it in any way, it would have to be on that basis. Um, but permitting someone to be able to exercise that right of free speech, we can't do that. And we also can't, you know, enforce the punishment mechanism in there for someone exercising that right. So, yes, they can't be running down the yellow line or skiddies. No. No. But do we have there's state statutes that okay but that would have to be the basis by which we chose to approach those people as a safety

concern. We but we've got but something in there regarding safety is codified somewhere. Jumping out in traffic would be state law violation. That'd be disorderly conducting. I think what was going on at this time, we had the the deal was just kind of getting going where we're at the offramps on the interstates asking for money at the deal and then we end up having a guy out there at the Liberty and Center uh shack up there for a minute pan handling. I think that was what if I remember right, I don't know, it was 2008 we were here. And you passed it. Yeah. City attorney said it was okay though. Well, it probably was in 08. A different attorney. It was okay back then.

It was okay in '08. just 2015 changed it and we should have my predecessors or or the city attorney at the time probably should have looked at it and changed it as to repeal it at the time but over committee. It's a good thing that nobody enforced it or we didn't issue any permits since then. It was just get cast by the cification. Well, I I actually remembered this ordinance when they were out there and a foya came in and I remembered it back when I had to serve as temporary mayor. That came up and that's why I remembered this ordinance and then I asked Brad about it. That's a segue for you. No, I'm not you.

I'm not leading the witness. Yes, you are. But the courtesy it'd be if somebody's going to do this, they would go to the land owner that owns that property if they're going to set up there, right? Well, that yes, on private property, you can't regulate that. This is just talking about on public property or public rights. I make a motion we put this ordinance on for first reading by title only. Second. Have a motion to second. Mr. Maker, yes. Mr. Terry, yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. um Tedford. Yes. Mr. Powell. Yes.

Unanimous. An ordinance repealing ordinance 08-18 regarding permit procedures for solicitation of contributions and public rights of way declaring an emergency and for other purposes. I'll make a motion we suspend the rules and wave the second third reading. Second. Motion to second. Mr. Mer. Yes. Cherry. Yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Tford. Mr. Pow. Yes. Mice. Motion to adopt. Second motion second to adopt Mr. Maker. Yes. Mr. Terry, yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Powell. Yes. Mr. Tford. Yes. Motion to adopt an emergency clause. Second. Motion second. Sorry. Enact emergency clause. Enact emergency clause. Yes. Second. Mr. Baker. Yes.

Mr. Terry. Yes. Mr. Rainwater. Yes. Mr. Sever. Yes. Mr. Pal. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Mr. City attorney. Uh number seven, uh repeal not an ordinance resolution opposing bash grass from applying for private club license. I'll let Mr. Terry take the helm here.

Charlotte brought this up to me. This was in 2005. This the golf the country club out there was putting in for a private club license. They had all the ducks in a row and they crossed every tea and dotted every eye as far as what the ABC at the time the procedure was. You have a plan. You have to make it where 21 year olds be regulated so on so forth. Uh they went to Little Rock to ABC and then you had to come back to the city and get approval. Now it's been flip-flopped because the state got tired of having to listen to all the church folks and the drunk drunks and whatever argue. So they put it in our lap now and then it goes to the state. So anyway, what we would what happened back then was the local people that were against uh private clubs or whatever would gather a letter from Gary Campbell who sat here and chief whoever it was back then and the sheriff and take it with him to Little Rock and present this to the ABC. say here's all the town's people hate this idea and we don't want it to happen at the country club even though we're members of country clubs and for Smith would have beer we don't want Greenwoods to have it so anyway the council at the time was u you know they thought well we're going to get on board with this it was I don't know who brought this up but they made a resolution that uh to uh where I don't have resolution to oppose the club of the country club

getting a private club license. Now the city government has really no say on what the private club wants to do out there. Um so if they wanted to get put in for the license they could have the say from the city at that time would have been to turn it down in this board. Now the resolution was just something they could take down Little Rock and say hey uh they see the city government even hates it. So, it was just some more ammunition to uh promote against the ABC and Little Rock approving it at that time. Now, if you coming to us, we want your money. So, we're going to Well, we might not approve it, but I don't know if they're planning on coming to down here. It's been kicked around four or five different times as a member of the country club. Um, I don't know if they're going to do it or not, but if they want to, I don't know why we would prevent them. I mean, I get if you don't think there's people out there drinking right now and leaving the golf course, you're living under a rock. So, it's just some more tax dollars that could possibly be made for us and it would help the country club because they're hemorrhaging money just like the city is. Uh, but anyway, so this is just one that's repealing that. Uh, and then in 15 years somebody can come repeal ours and say they're against again or whatever. So, so I I didn't realize. So, this is in Gary Campbell's administration. It was me, Wayne Low, Paul Rush,

Daniel, Jerry Carter, Puroy, Puroy, and I think Daniel was on that. No, it was Daniel wasn't on. Okay. So, uh I didn't realize we'd adopted a resolution, but that doesn't surprise me. So, we're just repealing that. And so, they they know that they can start the process if they want to. Correct. And they they've already actually tried to start the process when the Niles guy tried. They were in the room that night want to submit after his passed until they saw that and then whenever his didn't pass, they just stay quiet and watch the tend the rest of the show. Yeah. Oh, it's on Oh, it's on the back. Yeah, it's on the back. The old one's on the back. Yeah. I'm saving paper.

Very good. Yeah, you're you're very good. I just didn't realize. saving screen time even. It seems like who was the So, it's an ' 05. Yeah, man. I've been here a long time. Well, you were off for a couple years, then you came back. You didn't have an arrow in your back for a long time, hadn't you? Yeah. Sticking out. Just Just for the record, just for the record, this resolution is not giving Bashgrass the authority to go buy beer and sell it right now. Just Just for the record, people know that. And if this is just a This is just revoking the old resolution saying city council and it's not saying that the city of Greenwood's for them getting a private

remember a little bit better. So they were in asking for our blessing to move forward. Not only did we not give them our blessing, we actually pulled a resolution out that they could take with them saying we expressly expressed the we do not appreciate it and that was the that was the administration of the times province or whatever and so that's fine. We do have a process the chair and about every councilman got defeated the next I make a motion we adopt the resolution second motion a second to adopt Mr. Maker yes Mr. Terry yes Mr. Rainwater yes Mr. Tedford yes Mr. M I mean Mr. How? Yes. You know,

and also if they do come and apply, that's when we'll have this body will have the say in whether we were for it or not instead of instead of the 05 body. Right. Very good. Last night on the agenda, now department reports. I'll start it real quick if you don't mind, council. Uh, so I had a question on the dam itself. I know you don't have anything just yet. And it's and it's it's lowered or I'm sorry, we're holding water back to keep that from leaking. Correct. Or I don't know, but the the bladder so we're not

let's Yeah. Okay. Which makes sense. I've had and the reason I'm asking publicly so because I've answered that question the same way I'm going to now even after I know but a lot of people go out there to fish and they're like what's happening so I said well take advantage of it the fisher have less water so you should be able to catch them uh so that's that's that uh what about the dredging idea is that still on the table

or not volume as much.

Yeah. Okay. Right. Something else.

Well, I know. Sorry to interrupt you. the chief and I met with with Chad Martin out there because if I what I remembered at that time we were some of the issue of the cost that million dollars or whatever it is was what to do with that material and so chief had an idea or somebody I think it was you chief that hey what about placing that material over here to help with the firing range and Chad was heard us on that and U I haven't gotten really to talk to him since then. I don't know if that I don't know if that was enough deterrent to help. You know, you don't have to haul this off. We don't we just dump it right here right there beside the lake. So, I don't know. Is that something that's still under discussion or not? Really?

Okay. I just Yeah, that's just something we did. Yep.

Makes sense. I and I want to say too, I know I know we're on definitely on record and so people don't panic on us. The dam is not leaking currently because the water level is below that, right? Okay. I know people that live down the stream that would be very uh concerned about any of that. So, on the side or something. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's what I had. I just curious for for the public. Department heads are several are here. Gentlemen, if you want questions, comments. I have a question for Danielle. How much is it to rent the senior activity center? I was not here last month. Is he going to grab the contractor? Oh, I thought you had So, we we presented road

we presented the contract last month. Um, so it's $50 for half a day use and $100 for full day. $50 refundable deposit. And the reason we chose those amounts where we were trying to make something um more affordable than the pavilion, which is lovely and great, but is a little more costly. Also, the other um locations in town that offer gathering places. So, and that excla Sorry, if that does not include the kitchen where that's off limits. Y'all get the lock on it. Insurance locks on the door. Yes. And we kind of we kind of mirrored um like Creekmore Parks rental cost since it's kind of like the same deal like where there's no kitchen, you're just using it for just the open space for gatherings or bring your own food, cater it, whatever you want to do.

Yes. Yes. They Yes. We per the Arkansas Department of Health, the kitchen cannot be used by anyone other than the SRCA. So, we had to put a lock on the door. Let's say two to four on a Sunday afternoon, maybe 31st. It'd be $50 deposit. Yes. And $50 to rent. And $50 to rent. How many people are there? It only holds. How many is going to be there? Well, it's going to be a drop by. There's a I think it's 66 is the You've told all of us there's maximum occupancy. I believe you got several more attendees now that six I need didn't find out if that day is open also whenever I will go check right now for you. I know we're hurries. I Yes,

we have my wife and I's 25th anniversary coming. So, we were going to have a drop by and say y'all are idiots or tell her she's an idiot. Stay with me. God bless. Two to four on the 31st. I was just going to drop by and say she's an idiot. Hey Danielle. Wow. Oh, Danielle, I had a question. Is the cost for residents and non-residents the same? Yes, we didn't go. Y'all didn't do like parks. Okay. No, that's fine. Whatever y'all want to do. Thank you, TA. Yeah, there's I don't know how we don't really Do we have any I know we have one pending reservation. You don't You don't have to come up. Oh, no. There's I think we have two or three. Okay. Yeah. Four. Four.

Yeah. Four. Oh, okay. I'm done. You got with Danielle? Yeah, I am. Anybody else? I got one. Is there a parks person here? Yep. He's back there. Okay. Uh Casey,

speed bumps on the road up Bell Park. Now, here's the deal. I don't know how often y'all go up there and just hang out and just watch cars go up and down that street. The speeders could care less about those speed bumps. So they fly over the top of them with relatively minimal noise to their vehicles. The ones that go slow over them and they're not speeding it gets you hear a lot more creaking and stuff. Now also what we've got is these punk kids around here which I was one back in the day that are driving around them and tearing up going to be end up tearing up our sidewalks that just freshly m painted down there. So in lie of having You know, I remember back in the day they those old crabby guys that ran the city would put these big old rocks out there so we couldn't drive around them. Um, and then we end up getting rid of them just so we have to haul rocks around there. But I I don't know what the speed bumps are for except for having kids drive around them and tear up our road and grass in the sidewalk eventually because the people that want to speed are just going to speed and they're going to jump over drive over them faster. So I'm just saying if They're I think they're hurting more because they're going to end up the driving around in parts. What's making me kind of mad. You're going to because once people see tracks and worn area, everybody's going to start doing it. And then you're going to I don't know. I'm just cuz I sat up there and watched this the other day and I was uh

You know what would help with that? What? Stop light. It give us more accidents. How does that do that? I get all that. Well,

well, and that I thought about that, but normally he says he's understaffed and can't have somebody sit up here,

right? Yeah, sure. They used to be there. Yeah. There used to be rocks there 100% because we used to drive around them all the time back in the 90s. Drove around. No. Around the speed boat.

Oh, yeah. Sometimes Mack had a good idea. Just put some big rocks out there. That's what I'm saying. Spend any more money. I matter of fact, I'm surprised there's not still there. They were humongous. I witnessed a little motorcycle type of a vehicle before the speed bumps and that was back when Tammy was the director and I I was there and I mean it was very dangerous and he was just Those are the ones you just hope you read about in the paper the next day, right? And they put them down though and it did help but still, you know.

Well, I'm I I get it all. the ones that they're on Gary Street where the school put in. I get it. There's kids everywhere for sure there. But I mean it's not slowing down the speeders I guess and it's just making a eyes sore where they're drive going to it's going to end up being worn spots. I mean I'm just making a suggestion and and I'm I'm not saying he needs to park a unit up there all the time. I understand where and I know there's I know they'd be on patrol up there all the time but you know can't be there around the clock. I know you know there's quite an abundance of those bowlers down on that gas pad down on send property. I figured

that's my and also I had somebody wanted me to tell the stick collectors are doing a fantastic job getting the sticks and limbs. They appreciate that's what I told him that tomorrow is the first Tuesday picking up sticks. Uh, m stick. Yeah, I'm here for the people. It's a very sticky situation. That's the only three ones I got. I got two.

So, we had heard a while back that they were going shut this highway 10 down here pretty soon and the bypass. What are they going to wait till school's over with before that transition or is that their plan? seems like originally that was going to happen before school and we sat and visited with those folks and we're all looking at them like are you crazy? Uh I don't see that it's going to happen because you know and I know and everybody in this room knows what has to be done still on 96 and over here by Pink Bud. They're not ready. Yeah. But they are unofficially still saying this month sometime which they've got 20 however many days left.

Picking up that turd lane was nasty. It sure made a problem. Yeah. Yeah. So we met on that and and they really were planning on doing it before school's out. But I don't see happening at all. That's not official.

I got a a gentleman from ARDOT came to my office last week. I guess was it Danielle that interviewed me to do a uh uh what do you call it public service announcement from AR dot with my what I was saying what I'm cons my concerns are and what ARD dot is saying to to let people know ASAP what all that's going to look like where you're going to be rerouted when it's going to happen but that's not ready for publication yet so I don't have an answer to say when it's going to happen. They're still saying unofficially this month. Now, my prediction is next month, but I don't know. Okay.

So, and as you know, they will when they're prepared to do that, they will in and the work the bad news of that and I think I told talked about it last month. I'm not sure down here at 96 that will be four stop signs to do that. And we all went we all questioned that. Nobody hears I love it. So speed bump Hunter at the time was over I saw Hunter's gears turning. Well, Ford didn't make sense and Hunter offered an option to that and they heard it but then huh but

kind of laughed and then I got an official later very very friendly phone call from Jason Huie Ardot and said yeah no we're not going to do that his option. So there'll be four stop signs down there to control that traffic. Over here in front of Pink Bud, there will be no stop signs or I'm sorry, two signs going north and south on Coker. And through traffic will of course be the by as it should. So it'll be the opposite of what it is now. Right. Right. As it should. And so I got a little bit uh concerned the last over the last couple weeks. I haven't seen a whole lot of action anywhere on that project. So they know me

doing something. The rebates are getting pulled. True. So they and so they that's true. That's where they come from. So they know me very well and I don't hesitate to call any of them. So I called Mr. Kenny Hooton who is the who is the foreman over this whole job with forgrren. I said hate to be that pesky mayor but I am. He goes ah it's okay. We understand you can call me anytime. I said did you leave town? And he goes no we're we're good. It's been too wet. We'll be back Monday. And they were they showed back not in full force today, but they were back. So, but because the day I called them, I only found six guys working and they were all six down at 96 working on the curb. Yeah. Right.

And that's it. Nobody else was anywhere else. So, hopefully you'll see a lot more out because if they're going to get it done in a month, we're going to have to pick it up. Have they done the main street extensions? Is it anywhere near close to done? Oh, yeah. That's poured that's poured guttered. It's actually finished. Now, what we will and I'll answer this question hadn't been asked yet. That's all the concrete we're going to see on that Main Street connection, right? But we have requested and they assure me that they will fix what they broke from that concrete over to the light on Center Street because that's tore up pretty heavily by dump trucks. And he said, "We will not leave your town with that." I would hope there was some kind of bonded

There is. There is. And and the same thing goes and I'll I'll segue to this. So out on on 71 in Denver where you go over the hill and you might lose control of your car. Yeah. We've addressed that several times. I called again today. Mr. Hootton hadn't called me back yet and I had chief and uh Jeff in the room with me. So I expect to call tomorrow. He told me all along that he will not fix that like it like they're going to leave it until they're done. There's no need in doing that because he's going to tear it up again. But but he promised me he would keep it safe. And I can't believe right now it's not

come in there and lowered it. Yeah, it's I'm not talking about as it's sitting. Right now it's Woo. I can't believe they haven't come in and it's made it where it's a little smooth. I know the cemetery's here and then there's that exit to the school but all that can be the cemetery won't be affected but and the school entry way can be changed but just knock the top of that down where it's not such a drastic well and I I think I know it's not a state highway but it's certainly there right it's their responsible and that is also bonded too because that's where those dump that's what's caused that as you know those dump trucks hauling all that material

so we are holding on to the to the goodness of the fact that we we will we will ask them all these questions before they leave town. On that note, Jeff and I and Chief Hobbs met with Jeb Baldwin. If you know Jeb, that's always a treat. Uh and it is he's a hoot, but he he used to be the bridge inspector for AROT. He's now the bridge maintenance supervisor. So, we met Construction.

Yeah, we met with him because we have questions about the bridge near the PD. Uh, and that's not part of this project, but it it currently belongs to ARDOT, but it will belong to us one of these days. So, we want to make sure that that is a that is okay, passes inspection before we inherit it. And, uh, we got a little mixed. This is okay, this is not, this is okay. And so I will be putting a phone call tomorrow to his boss encouraged by him to do so to say, "Hey, what what are you going to do to this before we inherit this bridge?" I don't think for a second, I don't know if Chief feels this way. I don't think it's fallen in, but it was built by uh

WPA WPA since 1963. Uh it's it's done really well. The steel's there, but the concrete is eroding around it, which to me looks it hor looks horrible. According to Jeb, Mr. bold when it's not affecting the the structure itself, the integrity. So, we're talking about the one over across from PD, right? Yeah. What about that gigantic hole that you could drop a basketball through? Well, they filled that in. Yeah. You talking about the patch? Yeah. They they fixed that,

but there's but there's more coming. So the surface so the bridge itself though so the surface of that and Jeb did you can take if you went out there with a claw hammer you can scrape that concrete and and you'll see rebar so he is going to suggest to his boss and I will do the same on the phone let's fix that let's resurface it and I don't want it just to look pretty I want to make sure we're not caving in now granted when the bypass opens there should be very very very little truck traffic, heavy truck traffic. That's where they have to go now.

Uh they're supposed to have to go unless it's local delivery, but when the bypass opens, that'll that should end almost completely for heavy truck traffic over the years that concrete deteriorated. Sure. And and he made a good point. Jeb made Mr. Baldin made a good point. ARDOT comes and salts that bridge. Nothing against Ardot, but he said it himself. They'll salt it and they don't come back and wash it off necessarily. So it sits there and eats up. Yeah. Eats it up. Street. We We I think we got one. So we're going to get a WPA bridge that's been heavily salted and has had a basketball hole size hole in it.

Well, it was not now. We are It's been patched. We are asking it to be I thought the deal upgraded to Now Mr. Baldwin can't hard. It's hard to say Mr. Baldwin. Jeb said, "If you want me to ask for a new bridge, I will." And I said, "Well, that'd be great." But with a sidewalk on, I'm not holding my breath. Yeah. The whole deal was we'll take over this road that we can't afford to repay, but it's got to be brought up to brand new standards. That's the same with the bridge. That's part of the deal. Kind of sort of. Yeah,

kind of sort of. So, we're working on it. I don't I don't want I want people to know that we are constantly talking to people, asking the right questions. And on that note, I just want to say this too publicly that today during all this I have u the the Burgess family I'm trying to make sure that those folks are are taken care of because they were a big part of this and they're the reason we have the bypass. I mean if it wasn't for Doc Burgess we wouldn't have the bypass and his family. So they had request as you know Dr. just had request of having access to to that farmland which uh they rent out now or lease up. But so I called Dane as of a couple of months ago there was not a lot of satisfaction for them to what ARDOT was doing and so I made some calls and I was assured by top dog ARDOT they will not leave here without doing that. So I called Dane today to say are you being satisfied? How's everything going? and he says, "We're good."

Okay. I mean, there's still some other things, little things, but he said we're good, which is great news. So, okay. I thought I was done. I got one more question. I had it in my notes for last month and I couldn't be here. Where are we at on our uh cut of the grandfather cash from the Chaffy deal? Hasn't been spoken of in quite a while. You know, I serve on uh well, I'm not on one of those board. You were on something. I was I'm still on it and we haven't met in two years.

Can you clarify what grandfather cash is for the rec to the trust for the chaffy crossing reclamation district area whatever it's called they have a fancy name come in talk about it. Yeah. Steve Be came and talked about it, but us and Barling and this county us and Barling and Sebastian County put in money up front on that whole deal when it started or whatever. And I will so I don't know anything more than I have. We literally have not met in probably a year and a half to two years. The judge I will say that during the height of those discussions and they got there was some heated discussions about what to do and who's supposed to do it and who's going to get what.

That was during right before there were some exits from Fort Smith. I don't have to name any names. And so, for some reason, it just kind of got quiet. Uh I think it's definitely on the radar, but I have not been notified of anything late as of late because they they were almost out of land and it was time to just defun the whole Yeah. conglomerate because there wasn't any use for them anymore. They were just rebying land and reselling and charging people and double dipping on the same piece of property. It's funny you bring this up. I just was just to bra one of my 10 visits to Braum. I was sitting there and some guy came over to me and goes, "Where's the money from Chaffy?" Really? And I said it took me a minute to think about what he was talking about. So

anyway, and so ultimately there was this trust fund cash and they were trying to spend it as quick as they could or give it to their figure out how to get rid of it the the board or hide not your board the whoever the upper brass are. Yeah. I was just curious that came I thought about the other night we were driving around over there. I was like, wonder where our money's at. Yeah. I don't I don't think I think just because of that during that time frame, there was all that stuff going on with Fort Smith and it's just kind of set back. But no meeting for quite some time. All right, I'm going to get my number two. So, the turning lane onto Mount Harmony, where where is that at? It's on

on somebody's desk. We make inquires monthly, once a week. And Jason was here. Sorry, that meeting that we had with Jason Huey, we asked again and he said thought it was already done. He he actually said we thought you guys were good to go and I said we've not heard back. That plan have a sidewalk on it. Yes. Okay. And he actually called.

Yeah. Yeah. Literally has a job number. Now, it's not the same pot of money. We know this for sure as the bypass. So it will not what would be nice and common sense is while they're here they just do it but it's not the same money. makes too much sense. I got a question. Yes, sir. What's going on with the old Bringwood fixture building?

Can't tell you. I'd have to I'd have to kill you if uh so there is I'm just kidding. So, there is uh a gentleman and a company or a company that has other companies attached to him. He's out of Oklahoma. He has come and sat with us and talked. uh he is trying to work through what we know about storecraft which is the owner in California and he doesn't want to do anything. There was an offer made by this gentleman to Mr. Lewis Lewis in California.

It did not. It was so far apart it might you're like well that's never going to happen. They're like $4 million. I may be exaggerating a little bit but they were way apart. Uh Mr. Look, uh M the gentleman that is working on it is also in contact with Cheryl Garner. Most of you probably know Cheryl. She's very part of this. Uh she keeps me in the loop. We keep all each other in the loop.

There's there's a little bit of high hope that this could work out. But there's also the gentleman that's interested in it is seeking funding from the state. And when you do that first, it it kind of doesn't look like you're able to do it. Usually, as Cheryl likes to say, usually they come in with what they have and then what can we supplement from the state or the city, right,

to help make this happen. And it it's kind of the other way around. So, she has said that he has a lot of good contacts. She's checked and and there are people that support him. So, it's in limbo. Uh we met with I met with or had a phone call a Zoom call with uh AEDC with Cheryl on it too. The three of us zoomed in on this call to ask what AEDC could do to help with something like this. Uh and she the young lady was very she didn't promise me anything but she said this sounds like something that would fit this program. and and she talked in the $500,000 range. This gentleman seems to be seeking two or3 million dollars.

Now, can there be other way? Now, that's just her saying that's what we could work. And then the governor has discretionary funds, which I'm also asking other people on my behalf. Uh unless Cheryl and I are actually trying to get an audience with the governor to say, "Here we are. This is what could happen for Greenwood. It could mean Oh, by the way, the job the jobs that he's looking at sounds minimal for at least 50, but up to 250 jobs within five years of this manufacturing plant. So, sounds good. Uh, but we're not holding her breath.

She could take the money she going to send to the prison and bring it over. Well, there's that. We had to mow that. So, that's 3,000 jobs. not mowed it again, but it's needing mowed bad and I called and left a message or texted, I'm sorry, Mr. Lloyd Ser, which is the coolest name in the world. Anyway, he he had been hired by Mr. Lewis out. He's the guy that did Chaffy Barracks in Fort Smith, and he was hired by Mr. Lewis to maintain that to what you see now, button it up

and start mowing it. and they did a couple of times and then recently as you see it's looking bad again. So I texted Mr. Ser and I said please address this if you are still hired by employed and he sent me a text that was interesting in the sense that he's been trying to get a hold of Mr. Same thing we've all dealt with uh whether he's paying him or not I don't know but he he assured me that that would be mowed very quickly. Mayor, will you let my office know we have to mow it?

Absolutely. I'm getting this close. If if if Mr. Senator Curry doesn't show up this week, I'm gonna have I'm gonna ask Jeff to go mow it because I I can't stand it and it does it's not good for No, it don't look good. Yeah, exactly. So, so there's that's where we are. Mr. Ted, did you you were looking at me like you had something though on that. I was just I'm I'm maybe the only one who doesn't know who Cheryl is. Garner. She's a She's a realtor with uh help me. Platinum Keller Williams. Keller Williams

graduate. I graduate high school with her. She was very very involved at the curve. No longer attached to the curve, but she she's quite the entrepreneurish type. Anyway, goes after. She goes she's a go-getter. She is a go-getter. She goes real real real real real smart. She was the economic developer on the chamber before she Yeah. started selling real estate. She got

she she is that person that Mr. Lewis told me on the phone one time. I think I know I told you this story. I was talking to Mr. Lewis and he said, "Well, if there was just somebody there with some sophistication I could talk to, we might do something." And I'm like, "Well, that's not me." Uh, but Cheryl is. But they they didn't they for a while, but then that went away like all things do with Mr. Lewis. So she he didn't want you. No. So that's that. Anybody? We got all these other guys here. Anybody make a motion? Second. Thank you very much. Yeah, I'll let you know.

I think we're probably right there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.