A&p Commission - Regular Meeting

Good to go.

You're good to go.

All right. We'll call this meeting to order. Mr. Brown? Here. Mr. Hanson? Here. Mr. Bader? Here. Mr. Gosch? Here. And Mr. Powell? Here. You will take a look at your minutes from the June 2nd meeting. Give me a motion whenever you're ready.

I'll make that motion.

AC?

I'll second.

Chris? All in favor? Good to go?

Thank you.

Review the finances. Cheryl, I see no yellows on here.

Was you out of your...

Oh, okay. So there is yellows. It's a hot dog. I've never seen no yellows.

Here you go, Mike.

There's all your yellows. All right.

You got me excited.

No, I'm fine. Thank you. I'm good.

I'm substandard. You and me, though. Anybody have any questions before we get Mr. Marsh involved?

I think we may have some comments to ask you. What you're seeing, this is Michelle Jones for those of you who didn't hear before. She's the one that's now my assistant that is handling the envy and the communications and postings and the reporting of the discounts and or penalties that come in. And you'll see under each of the months there, she wrote mail, meaning the notice went out there with delinquency and it also informs them of what that delinquency would be. I think at the end of this week, there'll be letters being sent out to all those that are in gray, yellow, depending on whether you're using black and white sheet or not. There are some grays there. If you had a color copy of it, you'll see the gray ones. Those are the ones that took the 2% discounts. And I'll show you what that looks like on our financials so that you can see what that equates to. We do have one odd one, number 24. It's not like they've already paid. They overpaid. And so we contacted them, but we have trouble with them with apparently understanding what we're trying to say. But they came in and paid us twice.

How could they pay? Did they pay one month the same twice? And then they got the letter and paid again. So they're paying the same amount twice. With the penalty. With the penalty, okay. Yeah, we definitely need to get that back.

We're trying. If you understand who that is. Yes.

Who's 39?

They do have color copy all of them do on their taxes. I had no idea.

Is 39 a new one?

No, that's Robert Tanner.

That's Robert Tanner.

Oh, that's an Airbnb. It's the actual Airbnb.

But they're the only one that pays.

They don't have that date on the Airbnb stuff. What?

But we do know there's some in the city that are not even paying. We assume they're getting gas otherwise they'd be sitting empty for months on end. So is there no way we can contact the

the land owners personally, instead of going through Airbnb? Or? Yeah, one of those. But we don't have a list of them. Do we? Here at the city. So they don't pay a franchise tax with the city? Like a business should?

Why not? My business, I've got to pay a franchise.

Really, all you could do is get on Airbnb and pull up all the greenwood. Oh, you did already? She's been blackballed.

She can't even rent anything for her vacation in Florida anymore. She's blackballed so bad.

Did you find anything out of DoorDash?

No, we do have a question on that. We were alerted that there's a potential issue with DoorDash, DoorDash that some of the vendors are using. Before 2025 July, DoorDash was remitting all taxes or required to remit all taxes that they collect. They were remitting to the state, but the local tax we weren't getting anything from because the state doesn't collect local taxes. So we looked at the new law. The law changed July 1 of 2025, and now it says that the local taxes are remitted in the settlements back to the vendors in their settlements. If that's the case, we want to know, is that then being remitted back to us in the amount that's normally coming from preparing food sales? We don't know if that's...

Isn't that tax being paid when they pay for their food, when you call in?

It's being paid and collected by DoorDash. DoorDash collects it all, and then what happens is they settle with the establishment however that contract agreement works. In other words, if they... The problem is that in the past, the law was that all taxes had to be remitted to the taxing authority, which would be the state and or local municipalities. We weren't ever getting anything from DoorDash, ever. But now the law says local taxes, because of our burly collectors of that, it does not go through the state. Those taxes are settled in that remit back to the establishments. That's what the law says. So technically we would have a door dash spot here I'll say back to Taco Bell this this city may have a

Because they're not paying. They're charging you $3 to $4 for something you can come pick up for $2. So they're making $2 off of delivering it to you.

That $2 isn't taxable for the A&P.

Not for the A&P, but it's for the city or the state. We get our $2 from DoorDash, and then that's what we submit as sales. And that's what we pay taxes on, what we submitted with DoorDash.

If you guys wouldn't mind, I'd like take that offline and we talk about how that works so if somebody's willing to come and sit down and walk them through that so we know that we're not losing on that DoorDash deal, that's fine. Because the law changed saying it's all settled back to you. I don't know how it's... We're just assuming that when you pay us, you're including the DoorDash as back.

It would be in your sales, wouldn't it?

I would think that anyone who's using an accountancy because that's where that information comes from. They get that report from third-party delivery, and it's included in that. But now if you're doing it as an individual, if you're Joe's, and you do all your own stuff, you're basically an honor system if you're reporting what DoorDash pays you. I don't know how everybody does it. I mean...

I agree 100% with him. I mean, for the larger companies, we have a contract with them, and here's what we sold.

Sales are recorded daily, and we pay taxes on that. It gets sent, and I see it at the same time they count it.

So there is a legislation in front of, I know AML has been talking about it, for DFA to collect local... But they do all the accounting and forward it back, and they know whether they're paying or not paying, and they're the ones that chase that money. That's not been approved yet. That's just in front of the legislature for the next consideration, something that they've put feelers out and asked the municipalities if we'd like to go along with that, and gives it back to the DFA, and the DFA then remits back to us monthly just like they would now. The drawback to that is we have a one-month lag. That would become a two-month lag. So your cash flow would move by another month by doing that.

But then again, they would probably check it against that person's receipts. And they would be the ones that chase

You got more good news for us? Man, I've got nothing but.

All right. It's a good day for it.

Okay, first, the good news is the city sales money tax is up from the 0% budget. We're up 5.26%. The numbers, even though they're going down, seem to be doubling up or is what we kind of use for growth, whereas at 5.26%, I think we'll be 3% or better for the year, but we'll see how that pans out. But right now, we're tracking as what would be construed a normal year, much better than 2025 was from the city side. From the sales, the taxable sales, all the taxable sales for all the categories that we have tax remittance from, The distributions add back the rebates and the audit adjustments in order to come back to the actual total distribution amount that would have been distributed to us. Instead, in this case, 75,000 was distributed for the year cumulative to various for all of cumulative 2026 so far by $2.8 million, 123 million down from 121 million from 2025. That is a 2.32% growth in the actual taxable sales. Keep in mind that that is what they pay, not the volume of what they buy. And the reason I say that is because the inflation rate going by. So that right there tells you that that 2.32% is below the rate of inflation, which tells me that if they're paying more, not buying more. City Council sees this every month. I will go to the county sales tax. mostly that we're up well more than a reverse of the 139, 1.39% that we were. We're up 3.64% for the year. That seems to be fairly steady. And a lot of that has to do with the amount of tax that's been collected throughout the county. The biggest reason would be, and I've been watching this from what we're hearing from Andy Richards from Fort Smith, is that the Bass Pro Shop was a big amount that came through. And we benefit from the collective tax. As far as the next thing I do, I have never shown this to you, but I have shown it to the city council. We started looking at the NAICS sector. The sectors that we're looking at are in color, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and food. Food is primarily your interest. And the reason I'm putting it up there is because over here on the far left, of the total, and these are the four categories that the cities compare each other to, just to see how these are the ones that represent more than 75% of what is construed as their taxable revenues, taxable distributions. Everything else that's in there is far less than those four collective categories. By the way, the food service, all types of restaurants, including fast food, taxable sales represents $1.7 million, based on the actual distribution of the tax. The amount that is the food service to the total, 9.85%, and it's 13.5% in the city of Fort Smith. Portsmouth's retail is 55% of their total tax were 58.9. 6.2 in wholesale were 6.4. Their manufacturing is much larger than ours, so their 4% of their total tax coming from manufacturing were 1.8. So they see this, and I do want to show you that all of this combined is about 78, 79% of their tax comes from those four sectors. Now there's many categories in these sectors are what we track. So I'm looking at January of 25 to July of 25, and I look at all of those four sectors compared to the January of 26 to July of 26, and have the seven-month total comparison and the percent change. Manufacturing's up 18.69% for the seven months. Wholesale's up 21. Retail is lagging a little bit. They are positive, but they're up only 0.38, less than from last year's seven months total. And that's good, and you're gonna see that number kind of parlay into what your numbers are for what's been collected in the tax for A&P. 26 versus 25's actual total, and city council sees these numbers. Now I'm gonna break down the top 15 actual categories. We call them categories within the sectors. So this line that's blue is 4541, electronic shopping. That's your online sales. So we can actually see what the online sales are doing per the amounts that are distributed of restaurants including the catering and when you look at it this is just the city of greenwood just so you know the july numbers compared to the 2026 year-to-date average which is all seven of those added together by about seven these numbers here reflect the percent change off the average seven went up i mean down seven went down eight went up Yeah, seven went down, eight went up. Prepared food was up 14.41% over the average for July, July compared to the average. And prepared food amounts right now to the average monthly taxable sales of 1%. you're dovetailing off of those numbers. So you're very positive right now this year. And what you see here is the codes for January all the way through July, and the trend line, the trend line's negative, but you do see a pickup in July. So it is going back in a more positive direction for all those categories. And just so you also know, there's 158 categories, by these categories. I'm using the top 15 because as that goes, that's about a little over 70% of our tax revenues come from those 15 categories. We could minutely break down the other 158 and that would be voluminous.

Do you expect the trend to come back up?

Yeah, there's seasonal adjustments here. Why do you see these two being, it's negative primarily because of the first two months two month lag that's november and december november is january and december is february and that's why those numbers are high because it's your holiday shopping and then you see everything level back off and come pick back up for school purchasing and then they have the prime days just so you know 9.3 It pertains to you. So this is your actual numbers for January through July. What we're doing differently now is we're breaking this out by penalties and we're recording those as incomes separate. So now we'll be able to see based on the letters and the people that are paying the penalty how much money is generated by the penalty and how much... so these numbers are calculated to a net dollar amount and just so you know the early pay discount for the percentage of what was removed was 1.1 percent of what would have been your tax is taken off the top and they can retain that as a vendor and as you saw there's a lot of them doing that it goes right back into their coffers the push to do that is we get cash flow So if you look at your That's an 11.12% growth. That includes now an average monthly collection of 18,927. If that rolls forward, and I'll just let you know, what we're trying to do by our letters and staying on top of this is to avoid this. Late pay, catch up, late pay, catch up. We don't want that. We want these lines to be more level. And that way the cash flow is being realized more timely. Your July total, you see the uptick. That's excellent for July compared to all other Julys. 20,354 was an incredible, so far this year, collection. As far as the average monthly is concerned, you're now seeing an uptick there, so it's going more positive for the average monthly collection since 2018 than now. In 2018, your average monthly collection was 10, right? This is the advertising, what we're projecting for the year. Last year, you ended up down. Your sales were down in 2025, 2.65% year-over-year growth. So far this year, even with the discount and the penalty, you're projecting a two-point right now. If everything stayed the same and you ended up a year every month with an 18.9 on a collection, you would end up about a 2.5% increase. So it's positive as far as all those numbers. And you asked if it was good news. It is good news.

It'll work.

Any questions?

Nope. I'll make a motion to accept finances. Second.

All in favor of finances? Thank you. Our first grant request, Sebastian County Fair.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just an update. We had the pageant at the end of July. We ended up with 52 contestants in that pageant, so we crowned queens for both Sebastian County and Arkansas Oklahoma Fair. Check, there we go. And so anyway, we had 52 compete. Kennedy Holland was actually one of our judges this year and she was excited since that's where she got her start on her way to Miss Arkansas. Last year, we had over 11,000 people come to the fair. What we've seen the last four years is we increase in attendance about 1,000 per year. Just kind of something was dumped in my lap this afternoon that one of our board members went through our fair Facebook page and the car show page. And between the two, with all the posting and the paid ads that we do, we've had 1,082,644,000 views just between those two Facebook pages. So we're out there promoting as much as we can to try to get people to green light.

Does anybody have a plan?

Well, you know, I'm thinking that it's, we're getting kind of low in the coffers, you know, so I would like to make a recommendation of $3,500.

Are you making that as a motion? Yes.

I'll second that.

Everybody good with that? Show of hands, yeah.

We just are running kind of low, so we're trying to spread it around.

I understand that. So return on investment is part of your bylaws? Is that what you go by?

Sure.

So you awarded a $20,000 grant over a two-month period for an event that drew in 3,200 people this year. And their highest was 3,900.

So I'm just... I understand. You know, we're... And...

Did y'all want him to come back or is that it?

Well, we can't.

The fair will be over. I think it's August. We'd like to say he would come back, but we have more money, hopefully, but replenish. We're just trying to balance out what we have.

I mean, even if we gave you everything we have, it wouldn't be what you were asking for.

What was that one? Because I think they may have, the grant that I actually have and the one you have might have gotten.

I have a grant request for $22,500.

Yeah, that's the right one. Last year we received $25,500.

Yeah, and, you know, either we had less requests, you know, and we had more money in there, even though, you know, we had, like you said, it was a down year. but apparently we had less requests, and now we're having more requests, and we're just trying to sprinkle it around a little bit more. Because you're doing a great job over there, Randall. I mean, there's no doubt. We appreciate the job you're doing.

I think we are looking at it, trying to determine if we're fairly dispensing the money. It seems like we are potentially not. These big events at $20,000 can't be done that easily, and if we're getting too many of them, we're going to have to start cutting back on everybody so that we can spread it out more fairly, I think is my opinion on it right now. Unfortunately, that's what we've got right now. You can come back next month and start early on the next one. There you go. You can do that.

You're right. You're having the attendance numbers there. That's what we like to see. Like I said, return on investment with the attendance and stuff.

I think part of it is you guys see me here a lot. Really, the only thing we used to come for was for the fair.

The only reason we see you a lot is because you asked me to come back.

And then, you know, we were asked to carry on two different traditions in town that used to get... So we got about $4,000 less on the car show this year because we wanted to work with everybody. We got 5,500 less on Trail of Lights, and we're trying to keep these events going, and the fair is kind of the genesis to do that. And when that funding gets cut, then it affects what we can do as far as promotion. But I understand where you're at, and we'll just keep working, and that'll be up to you guys to come up with a plan.

And again, kind of like what Chris said, come back earlier so that maybe we can kind of spread it out over it because we are having more requests.

I actually sent you a letter April? Probably April outlining what our grant request would be. And I was here last month for the actual grant request. But I tried to give you leeway into understanding what our particular needs would be.

I'm the bad guy, and I apologize for that, because no way diminishes the job you're doing. You're doing a fantastic job over there at the fairgrounds, and I sure appreciate that. I'm looking at what we have and looking at the request, and I'm just trying to think the best way to...

I understand. It's business. It's dollars and cents. It's where we invest that money, and I think that that's something that you all need to consider and... We are where we are right now, and we have to deal with what we have, and I understand that.

Part of the pressure we're on is paying the interest on the splash pad. So we took on the splash pad to be supportive of that, and I think we lack another year. Is that right? Yeah, 27.

It was five years, 20,000 years.

We're like 22 to 27 years.

That'll ease a burden. That is a burden that we took on. We wanted to be supportive of it and get it going, and that was a decision.

I understand.

That was Rod's fault.

That's why I'm speaking on it, because... I was a big pusher to support the splash pad. It's something they were jumping out there, very expensive project, trying to be part of it, and always very hopeful of its success, but it was just temporary. So I really appreciate the fair. I've always been a proponent of the fair. I always thought that was one of the best uses of our money. Early on, I was always dividing it by the number of tickets sold. This is pennies for the people we're getting in compared to some of the other things we're trying to support.

I read a study two months ago, the International Association of Fairs and Expos, Conducted a they had a independent firm do a study And it tracked all the fares across the United States broke them down by regions and then further broke them down by attendance So we fell into the southern geography area that they had We fell into the category 20,000 and under in attendance and were above the median because 10,000 would be the median and And the economic impact, because our fair impacts this town all year long, not just during the fair. The economic impact to the community is $1.4 million. And those are things I didn't even know. I knew it was big because I know what we spend and I know the carnival when they were here for Crawfish Festival bought four or six tires for their semis at Greenwood Tire. and they fill up and go to Walmart and get pallets of food. So there's intangibles that I can't even track. But you got a motion and a second. Now all I guess I need is a vote.

Oh, you did vote?

Okay. I'm with Rod. I mean, we got one more year of the splash pad, you know, and then we'll have more to. to divvy out to various groups and stuff, you know. But, yeah, I mean.

The largest recipient of our funding goes to the Greenwood City Parks Commission. And we went a little beyond that by paying for the splash pad to almost the point where we're close to 50% of what we intake goes to city parks. And I was. I was a big proponent of that. And I was even a proponent of maintaining the 40% that goes to them. So, yeah, AC's right. Some of this is my fault. I was just teasing on that. Randall kept staring at me. But the great thing is it's temporary on the splash pad. We'll be back. Hopefully we can continue to grow the fair bigger and bigger. And the economic benefit, these are the guys that benefit from it. They're the ones selling the hamburgers and the tacos and the pizza slices. So that is the beauty of the A&P Commission. The people that collect it, remit it to the state, turn around and distribute it to people like you. And it's a great deal. I understand. And you can see off of Tom's, we are growing a little bit, but inflation is growing just a tad bit more. So we kind of, for the most part, we're a little bit less than stagnant.

But it's positive. Chris was right. Get your grant in September, October. That gives us the whole year to award you money. Well, that's why I sent you a letter in. Yeah, but we can't hold money back. Okay. Go ahead and get your grant in. That way we can work on your grant through the year. Okay.

At the end of every meeting, we want to be with nothing left. Yes. We want all the money.

Yeah, I just don't want to be here.

You don't have to be here. Submit your grant application. We'll roll it over to the next meeting. You don't have to be here every meeting. Okay. I appreciate that. Unless you've got something special you want to say or just come see us.

That initial presentation.

Yeah, once you do your initial presentation, give us your grant. You don't have to come back. Okay, perfect. Whatever we got left, we'll stick in with you guys, you know, every meeting. All right, very good.

I think, you know, show us the total package again. You know, like I said in the car show, your attendance and everything. the fairs, you know, you're doing the rodeo, the crawfish thing, kind of show a whole complete package.

So Greenwood Rodeo is separate than our rodeo. Excuse me, you're right.

That would be a different grant application.

Correct.

In the future, we could... Over time, we developed this relationship with parks. They were constantly coming in and asking for the same event. And there were always big ticket items that would just kind of wipe you out. And you're sitting there staring at the Key Magazine and the Quilt Festival and stuff like that that are somewhat smaller deals that you want to support. it and there's been there was a discussion about uh not doing that with parks anymore and in the end we've kind of left it like that but it may be that we really need to treat you somewhat like parks and kind of spread it out over the years so we it doesn't take such a big hit when you do come in.

And I can do what Mike has asked and get it in right away. Do you want them separate for the car show?

Or do you want them all together? Unless you're under an LLC or something that's taking care of all of that at the same time. We are. It's all under the... Could we do that, Charlotte?

If it falls under an LLC...

Can they lump the car show and the fair all together and submit one big grant for all of it?

Absolutely not.

Seeing that it's coming from one company, would that be a pain in the butt? I can break it down.

Yes, break it down. I think you're going to run into the same situation. If we just say, all right, Randy, just tell us how much you want, do what you want to do with it, we're going to get into that same situation we got into with the other stuff, where it's like, no, we don't like the way you handled it. We're too bad. You gave us the money so we can do what we want. So as much as I don't want to have to see Randy every month, I think that we need it to be.

I don't have a problem with defining both grants. I think that would be good enough.

I don't have a problem with that. I mean, if bylaws allow that to happen. Okay, I agree. If bylaws allow that to happen. He could make a grant request for $40,000, $10,000 for this, $10,000 for this, and $20,000 for this, and then we can consider each one as we want.

Well, we kind of have an idea of what's coming down the pipes, really, is what I was going to say.

And it'll give us the rest of the year to work on it.

But still kind of do them individually like you've been doing.

All right, very good. Thank you all.

Thank you.

Tim Broadway?

Yeah, it's just that you had my coverage, so it looks like it's working. Oh, okay. He's good. He doesn't want to seem, you know, like he's asking...

So I need to make a motion that we do not want any more and that we're done with that. I'll make a motion we can't add any more to the hospital. Yeah. I'll make a motion we don't add any more. We're done with that event.

With the number one, item number one you're saying? Number two.

Oh, okay. Everybody okay with that?

Yeah. Great.

South Sebastian County Historical Society. Key Magazine.

Yes, I'm Kara Eford, and I'm asking for $3,000 to print 250 copies of our magazine at the end of this year. If you're running short, I don't actually go to the printer until October, so if you need to give me $1,000 now and $1,500 now, $1,500 then. That would be fine if you need to do that. It would just, and any money that's left over, I always, you know.

Can we put her on the top of the next meeting for grant request?

I just, yeah, I just needed to make sure I got, needed to make sure it came today because I wanted to make sure I had the money, you know, to print it.

Ms. Eford, we've funded you all since the beginning, and you know we're going to fund you. Yeah, and we appreciate it because it would be – So I might emotionally put them on for the top of the next meeting at this moment, not funding.

So it would be our October meeting?

Mm-hmm. It would be the October meeting. It would be on top of the agenda.

Okay, appreciate it.

Would that be too late?

No, I go to the printer. I always try to go to the printer in October, but that process takes two to three weeks.

Okay.

So it will be, yeah. And then they don't expect to be paid for two or three weeks, so it'll be fine.

I'll make a motion we give her $1,500 now and then ask her to come back.

Is that good with you? Yeah, Rod's already got his motion going. Oh, okay. You going to take yours back?

I can withdraw mine.

I'll make a motion we give her $1,500 now and ask her to come back for the next meeting.

She doesn't need to come back, though. Right, right.

So we'll put her on the top of the agenda, give her the other $1,500 at the next meeting.

Thank you.

Right. Okay. Yeah.

$1,500.

Great. Thank you.

Second. Second that. Nobody yet.

AC? Yeah. All right. All in favor of that? Everybody good, Rod? She doesn't have to come back. Just put her on top of the next meeting.

Thank you. She does not need to come back? No. But she's on top of the agenda? Yes.

Thomas Veach, Eagle Scouts. I pronounced that right, didn't I? Veach.

My name is Thomas Veach, and I'm asking for $5,300 to build a bridge on the south side of the Greenwood Lake.

This would be on behalf of the Parks Commission Trail Committee?

Yes.

What is your timeline? When do you need this money?

Not yet. As soon as possible, but I don't have to have it, I don't think, all at once. Is this south of the boat dock?

South side of Greenwood Lake. Can you tell him where it's at?

It's so the, yes.

I know where the boat ramps are at. So you turn left at the boat ramps and go south.

Correct, on the south trail.

If you have your thing, pull up 18, page 18 on your.

Do you know where Little Vash Grass crosses Mount Harmony? I do.

If you'll back up, the park property comes way back in there. So the house, there's two houses on the right before you get to Little Vashgrass on the south side of the road. It'd be right before that. That's where the park property ends. It goes behind those houses, and there's a crossing on Little Vashgrass that would get you back in towards the Holland property.

So is this part of the trail over there? Will it extend the trail? What benefit?

It will extend the trail. There's no physical trail yet to the location. That'll come later, but it'll allow access to that side of the lake.

Will this be a dead end trail? Because I don't know where you would go once you cross the creek.

No. It would have to sharply curve.

And then follow the lake?

And then follow the lake around, yeah. Okay. This is an attempt to complete a trail around the lake. All the way around the lake.

So you're going to ask for another grant for Vineyard Creek someday.

Not me.

Not you. Not me.

He's doing this one thing. Yes.

Okay. So is that this double arrow, is that where it's crossing? Yeah, that's where the bridge will be. Right there.

I mean, north and south. Okay. Pretty much pointing straight towards the Holland property.

Okay, so what is your timeline?

You've got pretty good drawings here. It's got to be done by my birthday, which is February 13th, so I'm hoping like January. January. Be done.

What's it got to be done by your birthday for?

Eagle Scout to get my award. Oh, you'll get too old. Yeah, if I turn 18 and this isn't done, I'm cooked. The Eagle Scout. That would be a whole career wasted, wouldn't it?

Yeah. There's been a lot of procrastination. Who's doing the work?

Me and then volunteers, so the rest of my Boy Scout troop, I will enlist to help me. And then friends who need volunteer hours, my dad will probably help me a lot.

He has volunteer hours to go.

So you're going to haul everything in by hand, I guess, like Rod did with the other bridges?

Yeah. He has a mini skid steer, so that will help with some stuff. I see. But, yeah, yes, everything will be like us. Cool.

And how long do you think it'll take to build?

A month, two, three months, two, three months, probably.

That's one of Rod's questions. How many people do you think is going to use that bridge? We're going to spend $5,000 on it.

Over the years, a lot.

Give me a number.

A number? Probably.

1,000 people will walk that bridge.

Yes, because there's a lot of people who like to run the trails. And, I mean, that's, like, allowing for an expansion of the trails, more running.

It would be a good expansion.

It would. Brings more people to it because the south side, especially, it's a little short. You kind of walk out there, and then you turn around and come back.

Oh, okay. So this will make it a lot longer.

And I don't know. you know, in defense of this project, you know, I was one, you know, about the trail system thinking, well, I don't know if they're going to be utilized or they're a flash in the pan. You know, a lot of people walk on it first and then it'll die off. But, you know, what I've seen in the trail system, you know, it's a lot of people use them, you know, and I think they'll continue to use that as we expand the trail system. And so, But we're kind of limited on the resources.

Right now we've got $1,900 that we can give you right now to get started. So I'll make a motion we give them the $1,900 to get started and see if we can get them on the next one to get a little farther along.

October, would October be too late for you to get the rest of your money? It would not be. Do you still have time to finish up?

Yes, sir, I would.

At least you could buy all your supplies and then finish it whenever you want.

I'd be able to get a lot of wood.

If you could get anybody to sponsor you or help you pay for some of those supplies, I mean, go ahead and do that. Okay. You won't have to give me as much. Okay. Yeah. And I'm assuming there'll be some kind of... plaque on there? Do we request a plaque?

It'd be nice if it had an A&P plaque on it.

Every project that the A&P's been involved with has a plaque and at the bottom it says funded by the A&P Commission, Advertising Promotion Commission of Greenwood. And that goes back six, seven years.

I'll second it. Second that. Everybody good with the $1,900 for now and the remainder in October?

And he'd be second on the list for October? Second on the list for October. Does he need to come back? Does he need to come back?

No, you don't need to come back for October. We'll take care of it. Thank you. Unless you want to come back and give us your progress, but that's up to you.

I think that'd be good. I'd like to hear the progress.

Chamber of Commerce? 26, you'll run. Mr. Purvis?

Yep. I only came to bring you your shirts anyway. We've got $25. I will give you a report. We had another great race, 4th of July. We didn't quite break our record. We broke a record four years in a row, but we kind of knew what we were headed for because Saturday is usually the lowest crowd that you can have on a race because they're all gone to the lake. We had 376 runners. That's still not bad. What we did do that you all, we kept it a secret. You all can see it now on your shirts. the you the Freedom Fest run is now officially the Randy Davis Freedom Fest race As you all know Randy was chair of that race for 20 years. He kept it alive by himself Struggling get a hundred people come run when he first started it Yeah, so it is it's become a major deal and we managed to keep it a surprise to Randy Till about an hour before the race started he started seeing the shirts because people already had he was tickled and Thank you, guys. We'll come back and talk to y'all in October about our email.

It's definitely not Randy on the picture. That's definitely not Randy. He's not got that much hair.

Thank y'all. Thank you.

Thank you, Bob.

So you'll be back in October? Yep. Okay. That's it for the grants. We've got a consideration for provisions on the bylaws for the event cancellation. Charlotte, is this your deal?

The deal is, what I've noticed is we run into sometimes where their initial budget that they can say they do, they sometimes come submit an invoice that may be either gray or is not in that budget. And also y'all have said that they can make their line item, spend more and less within their budget, but it really wasn't in here very well.

We've said that they could spend more than what was in their budget?

Instead of $1,000 in television and $2,000 in radio, they spent $1,500.

Moving the money around, but the budgets stay the same.

As long as there's no new budget line or the old agency. And it's saying in here that if an expenditure is not initially in that approved grant budget,

They can't take $500 and decide they want to do something they didn't ask for and then just send us the invoice.

We've had that issue?

Yes. So I put it in there while we're saying that if they're trying to spend money out of there that's not in that budget and they have to come back, I thought we might as well put in here that existing line items can be adjusted.

I think that's something you're saying. Basically, you're just saying that, yeah, if it's a new category that they put on there that they didn't put in the budget item, they can't move it around.

If you've got apples and oranges and grapes, you can't buy a watermelon.

Yeah. But we can move money between line items. Between the apples and oranges and grapes. We can move money from that.

But I'm adjusting it for how we operate. And then down there in the next shaded part... So this comes up rarely, but it does come up. So should an event become canceled due to weather, so then on the application it says your event date. And that pushes it to a different time later if they have to cancel it. And so that affects then the 60 days past the event and all of that stuff. Because we can only pay up to 60 days past an event's held.

Are you wanting to take this out?

Do what?

Are you wanting to take this out? No, I'm adding this. Adding this in. Okay.

Should an event become canceled due to weather or other unforeseen cause, the unspent remainder shall be utilized and remain eligible for funding. So moving that 60 days again.

And so, well, that's where it kind of threw me when you said, you know, and remain eligible for funding. to within 60 days of the date of the scheduled event. Rescheduled. Rescheduled. And so it's, but you're saying it's 60 days after the rescheduled event. They really, you know, to me, so.

60 days is the paragraph above this, I hope.

So if you're having an event in March and it rains out and you move it to June, then you have 60 days after the rescheduled event in June, not 60 days from the original event in March, which is what it used to say.

And so I don't know if y'all read it that same way, too, or to me, because within 60 days, I was thinking, okay, 60 days of the scheduled date or from the original date? Yeah. Right, if I was saying up to 60 days past the scheduled event, yeah. Up to 60 days past the date, yeah. Yeah, I like that.

Okay. Because rescheduled events weren't really addressed. Also, and I didn't mean anything here, and I don't know what you do, but what if somebody... You've already spent the money on the event. You've got in here the unspent remainder.

Most events, everything is spent before the event.

Just like the disc golf.

They go out and buy 150 shirts, and there's a torrential storm that day, and they cancel it, and then they can't find another day. Well, they've already spent the money on shirts.

Well, right. But what if they cancel it completely and never have it? Not rescheduled.

Well, they're going to have to come back to us eventually.

Do what?

They're going to come back to us eventually. Yeah, yeah.

So if that happens.

Fool us once.

If somebody gets a $5,000 grant and they cancel our rent.

And don't do it again. Yeah, don't reschedule it.

That's the end of that event. Ever.

Yeah, that's what I say. That's the end of that event. Ever. That would kill your grant applications.

Do I need to put it in there that if that happens, then it. The grant will not be considered again for the future or what? Do you want to be that brutal?

I'd say let's wait. It could be handled just within a vote.

Yeah, I'd say.

Everybody that's.

Unless we see a trend or something that we need to really address it. I'd say we just handle it, you know, as it comes along. Yeah.

It's not in there. I just wonder.

I think the 60 days was necessary because if they have to change it, then we break in our bylaws by paying it after six days from the original event. So putting the new debt, I think that helps out a lot.

I wish we could put something in there expecting them to use local vendors or try to use local vendors first. I know we used the word of mouth thing with this, but you probably can't even word it in the bylaws, but that's my biggest pet peeve is the money going outside Greenwood.

Did we not have that in here before?

Yeah, for some reason I thought we did, but I didn't have it. I don't know if we ever put it in there.

I don't know that you can. I mean, no, but. If you force them to use a local vendor, what if the local vendor's $1,000 more than you?

I think it says in there that we must attempt. Attempt, yeah.

Attempt. At least they try, yeah. I just hate the money going outside the city.

So I don't know who would be.

I was just listening.

So in our discussion about the money we're spending and where, is there any way to get a report maybe November, December-ish to kind of let us know what did we spend last year on those events?

We can do it with the addresses of the vendors. There are some things we pay that go out of state.

Well, no, I'm talking about how much money did we give to each event over the year to determine whether or not should we have overspent? Did we need to prepare for that next year? A lot of times they come up here and we say, how much did you ask for last year? Oh, $10,000. Okay, we don't know if they asked for $10,000.

Yeah, that's our report. I can't just sit out and I'd have to give you the amount of the grant and then give you its accompanying money that we spent.

I'm just curious because I'm...

Michelle says she could do it.

Towards the end of the year to like this is what we did in 2026. Just because I mean when we started this thing we were trying to get rid of money now we're telling people no and I just question them are we doing all the right things to everybody or are we are we giving money to people? Not people, but organizations that maybe we could spread out a little bit.

To me, that just tells the success of the A&P Commission. I mean, you know, word's getting out that, you know, and we're having more people come up with requests. But I agree with you, Chris. I'd like to make sure that we're trying to spend the money and spread it around as best we could.

I'm not saying anything secretive,

We see what goes out, and we write the checks, and I'm mailing them. I'm writing the address out in the rodeo, for instance. I mean, most of that money goes away. It goes out of state.

The contractor is a large expense.

I understand there's no stock contractors in this area. That's got to be hard.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. We don't make sales.

I'm just saying. And again, I'm not trying to get rid of any event, the rodeo, the fair, the Freedom Fest, whatever. I just want to make sure, are we doing this fairly? Are we giving one more money that we maybe could take five?

Rod looks at it the good way. He looks at how many people showed up, calculates how much we give to them, and how much per person are we paying. It's really the only way you can do it.

Plus, the other part is the people that stand there that ask for the grant, They're local, and I think it's on them to try to do as much as they can locally as they possibly can. Most of the time, you realize who's up there, what they're trying to do, and the end result.

For me, it's not a hard number for them to sit up here and say, oh, I think I got 1,200 people. Well, how do you know that?

Yeah.

So we're doing math off of what they're asking for and what they're saying.

I got it figured out. Go ahead.

Don't even. I knew it was going to happen. We'll put Wade Dunn in charge of the track made my neck hurt.

You know we're being recorded, don't you?

And we'll have it figured out. I just feel like that. If we had something to look at for a whole year, it would give us an idea.

What can we do for you, Mr. Purvis?

I'm going to open my mouth and volunteer again.

Wouldn't expect anything.

I think it would be beneficial.

I think anything extra we can get.

It certainly wouldn't hurt anything.

No, I mean, we're sitting here listening about how we're increasing revenue and everything is looking great, and then we're sitting here saying, okay, yeah, but we don't have any money. Well, why the hell not? If we're raising more money, where's the money at?

Because you're giving it all to the parks. No, we're not. We're giving it to the wrong amount.

I know, and that's what I'm saying. Right, and that's why I feel like sometimes we sit here every two months and say, all right, yeah, you can have it, you can have it, and we never look at it for the whole year and say, where did we give all this money to? And was it the right places?

And looking at the other side, it's easier standing over there asking for the money than it is to go out and beat the bushes and get the money somewhere else through companies and whatnot. I mean, this is easy money for these guys to come up here and get from us. I mean, I know he's mad about the fare and everything, but we're not his only source of money. There's companies out here you can get grant money from.

There was a man that came up, and he was trying to raise money for a fence. And he came multiple times, and we suggested that he utilize his options in town other than just us. You haven't heard from him in six. Hasn't been back. Maybe he utilized six.

As a business owner, I don't put all my eggs in one basket. 100%. Because it'll bite you someday. Just don't.

Bob, I would love anything you could present. That'd be great. Just for my brain. Maybe I'm too analytical. I need to see numbers, so it bothers me. That would be great if you could offer anything for us. I'd appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

Does this all fall under our commission comments? It is. Okay. We've never moved on to that yet.

That's what I assumed we went to.

We're there.

We're in commission. We probably need to vote on these changes.

I'll make a motion we accept the changes as discussed. Everybody like the changes? Good job. Now commission comments.

John, we've got nothing to say. I got one. Let's hear it. So at the back of the room, very back of the room in the seafoam shirt. One of our councilmen? Is one of our councilmen, Roger Rainwater. Roger is a... Although he's in a first term, but he's a long-term serving councilman. So he's not a rookie at this. He's not a rookie. He goes back before I started 20 years ago, and he's serving a term right now. I've asked Roger, I always... thought that different people, we need to rotate through if possible. So I suggested that we rotate our position, and Roger accepted it. So the first of the year in January, he's going to take my spot. And he's got a restaurant background, y'all can't believe. His wife's always worked. His wife worked at L&J. She's worked for Sean up here until recently. They loved Ellen Jay so much, she was married in the back of it in the kitchen. So 1984. So true story, and he's going to rotate in in January, and I'll rotate off, let another set of eyes be on everything.

That's why I threw Rod under the bus, because I knew he wasn't going to be home. He wasn't going to be here anymore. He got one more.

We hate to see Rod leave because he's really the one that started the A&P. I mean, this was his dream. and he's kind of the forefather of the A&P. So I definitely hate to see him leave.

A&P was the flock camera before there was a flock camera. Correct, yes. I drew the ire of Wade Dunn a long, long time ago.

It was a tough battle.

It was a tough battle.

Do you have a Dawson t-shirt?

No, that was before Will Dawson was even known about.

He needs to have a Spawn of Satan shirt. That's what I need to have.

Okay.

I'll make a motion we adjourn. Second.

I second it. I'm all in favor of it. Thank you.