City Council - Regular Meeting

Let me start over again. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to call this Jonesboro City Council meeting to order. The mayor is out of town on official business tonight, so I'll be conducting the meeting. If you will, let's stand for the pledge of allegiance led by the invocation by Dr. Charles Coleman.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Father, we thank you for granting us this time to be stewards in this community, and we just pray, Father, that the business that we take care of is incarnate to your will. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Coleman.

All right. Madam Clerk, call the roll or load it up for us.

You might sure that's your pressure button.

All right. We do have a quorum to conduct business, so we'll move on. Item four, special presentations. There are none. Item five, the consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion to adopt unless there's an item to be pulled. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second to adopt the consent agenda. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right, resolutions removed from the consent agenda. Resolution 26-103. Oh, sorry.

You want me to go? A resolution requesting for utility services from City Water and Light for city-owned property. Whereas the City of Jonesboro is requesting that City Water and Light provide free utilities at the following location, 1709 East Highland Drive. Now therefore be it resolved by the City Council for the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas that section one, that City Water and Light requested by this resolution to provide free utilities to the location listed above. Section two, to permit such services to be provided without charge, the City of Jonesboro hereby affirms to City Water and Light that the ultimate use of CWL utilities so provided is now and shall remain a use or purpose which the city is engaged in as part of its governmental or proprietary functions under authority given to it by state law.

Move to adopt.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to adopt. Any discussion by the city, by the council?

Madam Clerk, I'd ask to be recused because of my membership on the Board of Directors of the City of Waterline.

So voted.

Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this item? All right, hearing none, Madam Clerk. And the item passes. Item six, new business. Ordinance is to be introduced. Ordinance 26034, an ordinance levying a citywide five-eighths of 1% sales and use tax and prescribing other matters pertaining thereto. Move we suspend the rules and offer by title only. Second. We'll let, go ahead. Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. No, we'll go with the order on the agenda.

An ordinance calling a special election in the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas on the question of levying a city-wide five-eighths of 1.625% sales and use tax and prescribing other matters pertaining thereto. I did it backwards. I'm sorry. Let me read the other one. I did it backwards. An ordinance levying a city-wide five-eighths of 1.625% sales and use tax and prescribing other matters pertaining thereto.

All right, what is the will of the council? Move to adopt. Well, we would need to suspend the rules and waive second and third reading first. So moved. OK, I have a motion to suspend the rules and waive second and third reading. Move to adopt. We need a motion and a second. We need a vote on that.

Do I have a second? Second.

OK, we have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and waive second and third reading. Any discussion by the council? All right, hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Move to adopt. I have a motion and a second to adopt. Any discussion by the council? Any discussion by anyone in the audience on this subject? Hearing none, Madam Clerk. And the motion passes. For the record, Madam Attorney, which one did you read last that we voted on?

The correct one is what I read last, which was 26034.

I want to make sure we had the numbers right. All right, ordinance 26035, an ordinance calling a special election in the city of Jonesboro. Move we suspend the rules and offer by title only.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and offer by title only. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

An ordinance calling a special election in the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas on the question of levying a citywide five-eighths of 1.625% sales and use tax and prescribing other matters pertaining thereto.

We will suspend the rules and waive second and third reading. Second. I have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and waive second and third reading. Any discussion by the council? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? We would need a motion to adopt. Second. A motion and a second to adopt. Any discussion by the council? Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this item? Go ahead, Mr. Hines. Sorry, I didn't see you coming. James Owen Hines, 508 Ridgecrest.

Just a point of clarification, because the thing says special election. And it's my understanding this is one of those special elections that will occur at the same time as the November election. I think it's good that everybody in here understand that.

And it doesn't take effect until that time. Correct.

Please state your name and address for the record, Patty.

Patty Lack, 4108 Forest Hill Road. I don't know if Steve Pertee would like to answer this question, but I was going through the budget, and we actually have $9,777,447 extra in our reserve. My question to Steve, and I don't know if you would like to answer it here or whether in.

Just as a point of order, the only thing that is before the council is whether or not to place this on the ballot, not the merits. Thank you. Anyone else? Hearing none, Madam Clerk? Motion does pass. All right, moving on. Ordinances on first reading. Ordinance 26031. I move we suspend the rules and offer by title only. Second. I have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and offer by title only. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

An ordinance to amend chapter 2-87 to clarify how a city council member may sponsor legislation.

Anyone on the council with a question or a comment? I just have one question.

Yes, sir. It says in here that the mayor and city clerk shall be forwarded to the mayor and city clerk and shall be assigned to the appropriate committee by the mayor of their staff within five business days of the receipt of said resolution or ordinance. I guess my only question was, is it five days long enough? Like today, if the mayor's out of town or on vacation or something.

Well, I'll tell you what we'll do. We're going to read it over three separate meetings. I'll have Brian check and make sure that that timeline seems to be fine with the administration. That could be a concern with five days is pretty short.

I do think that five days would be exclusive of my office having time to review it and make sure that it's legally okay. So we would do that first. I think it's just after it gets to his office. So, I mean, you take that out of the equation. Right.

I'll mention that to the mayor, Mr. Hafner, and we'll run it by him for sure. Anyone else with a question or a comment? Anyone in the audience with a question or a comment on this? All right, hearing none, Ordinance 26032, an ordinance to amend Section 284 of the Code of Ordinances.

Move to suspend the rules and offer by title only.

Second. Second. I have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and offer by title only. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

An ordinance to amend section 2-84 of the code of ordinances to add procedure for opening invocation during council meetings.

Anyone on the council with a question or a comment? Anyone in the audience? All right, hearing none. Ordinance 26033, an ordinance to amend section 284 and 287 of the code of ordinances. Move to suspend the rules and offer by title only. Second. I have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and offer by title only. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

an ordinance to amend section 2-84 and 2-87 of the code of ordinances to correct outdated language and update timelines for providing notice of a special called committee meeting to the city clerk and for other purposes.

Anyone on the council with a question or comment? Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this item? Hearing none, we'll move on. Item seven, unfinished business ordinances on the second reading.

An ordinance to amend chapter 117 known as the zoning ordinance providing for changes in zoning boundaries from PDM multifamily use to PDM commercial use for property located at 1411 Southern Ridge Boulevard as requested by Jeremy Bevel on behalf of Southern Hills Apartment Development LLC.

Anyone on the council with a question or comment? Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this item? Hearing none, we'll move on. Ordinances on the third reading.

An ordinance regarding the abandonment of a 15-foot alley between 1810 Henry Street and 1812 Henry Street as requested by David Clift.

Move to adopt. Second. I have a motion and a second to adopt. Anyone on the council with a question or a comment? Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this item? Hearing none, Madam Clerk. And the item passes. Ordinance 26024.

An ordinance to the City of Jonesboro to place various traffic signs at designated locations as determined by the Traffic Control Committee.

Move to adopt. Second. I have a motion and a second to adopt. Anyone on the council with a question or a comment? Anyone in the audience? Hearing none, Madam Clerk. And the item passes. Ordinance 26026.

An ordinance for a private club permit for Encouraging Advancement Incorporated doing business is Blazing Buffalo Sports Grill Incorporated to be located at 3310 Southwest Drive, Suite 7, Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Move to adopt. Second. I have a motion and a second. Anyone on the council with a question or a comment? Anyone in the audience? Mr. Hines, please state your name and address for the records. James Owen Hines, 508 Ridgecrest.

And any of you who do not know where Ridgecrest is, let me point out it's located one block off Southwest Drive. I live within walking distance of this place, and I consider this to be in what I consider my neighborhood. Folks, we don't want this in my neighborhood. This is not a place, there are some places, and I know some of you think, well, those places are devoted, they have liquor, and it's just one more place. Well, this is not that. We don't need to get liquor started down there. About the only reason I can think of that they would want one is so that there'd be a place where you could drive by, stop and get you some booze before you drove on home if you attended the ball game at Jonesboro High School. Please vote against this.

Thank you, Mr. Hines. Anyone else in the audience wish to speak on this item? Hearing none, Madam Clerk. The item passes. Ordinance 26027.

Ordinance for a private club permit for Encouraging Advancement Incorporated doing business as Blazing Buffalo Sports Grill Incorporated to be located at 3310.

Sorry, y'all.

I'm clearly sick tonight and I'm like, you know. All right. An ordinance for a private club permit for Mataji LLC doing business as My Place Hotel Jonesboro, Arkansas to be located at 2905 Gilmore Drive, Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Anyone have a question? Oh, go ahead, John. We need a motion to adopt.

Do I have a second?

I have a motion and a second to adopt. Anyone on the council with a question or comment? Anyone in the audience?

I have had questions proposed to me about the hotel. Did you look into that, sir? If he could speak to that. I've had a couple of emails requesting whether, because on our application it says it's a hotel-motel application and whether it qualifies under that for ABC.

Yep, so Keyshawn Doss. We are not applying for the code that's 39240 that the gentleman was asking about. Concerned about? Yeah, we're applying for a private club permit, so it doesn't really apply to us.

Have you spoken to the ABC about it? I expressed to him that we don't typically look at that, that we approve location and owners and that the ABC is required to vet the application once they receive it and that they would vet it to determine if it meets their qualifications for that. But I also expressed to him today that I would ask the question. So I wanted to ask the question.

I did. I spoke with ABC as well and they said you are not applying for that and they sent me an application, which I have.

All right. That's the only question I've received.

Any other questions or comments by council or members of the public? Hearing none, Madam Clerk? And the item passes. All right, that concludes our business item eight, Mayor's Report. Brian, do you want to give us any updates or are we good? Yes, they were good. Hey, he didn't leave me a report to read, so you're up, buddy.

Now, just don't have anything else to add other than we've got Barbecue Fest coming up and where you are exploring possibly a public input meeting to occur in council chambers that evening to gather some additional information back on both the master growth plan and a couple other public safety. initiatives that engineering is working on. So keep an eye out for that as it comes along and also as we're kind of running up on Pedestrian Safety Month in October, we're working on kind of some city-wide campaign education efforts to help raise awareness for both pedestrians and motorists. Part of that I guess will be hopefully funding some additional pedestrian infrastructure on Johnson as well that should come to fruition somewhere around that mating. So that's really about all I've got to add.

Mention some of the figures in the email you sent to council, persons about the figures as far as the hawk signal on Johnson and the success of it.

Sure. Actually, I did an interview earlier with KIT, and I had the engineering department pull some statistics, and Cliff Nash with the our traffic division and engineering department keeps a pretty close eye on that hawk and he does spot test about every two or three weeks and I kind of send out just his daily spot checks during daylight hours and you know, if you pull the averages of that since May of 2024 when that was put in, you're looking at about 115 to 125 people per day. You know, that's somewhere between and that's just during daylight hours. That's somewhere between 85 and 100,000 people that have used that crossing. since it was put in. And as part of those spot checks, he actually views the camera footage both ways to check for compliance. And I know we hear a lot of unfounded criticism here and there about people don't use it, this and that.

74.67% of people that crossed within eyesight of that camera use that crosswalk.

in a way that is designed to be used. So I just think that it's an incredible testament to if you provide safe access, people at least have a chance to use it the right way.

You said 75%.

74.67%.

Ryan, the other thing, do we have an estimate on when the bridge repair will all be finished?

I don't. I mean they were moving along on it pretty good. For those that don't know, the south side of that bridge, once the bridge actually met the abutment, there was some problems on both sides of the sidewalk. There had been some asphalt patching over the years and it was actually a pretty significant little drop off ledge right there that any kind of wheeled access or stroller or wheelchair could definitely have caused a safety issue. You know, we're applying some of the, I guess, some sidewalk in lieu of funding to repair that and to make that a smooth transition from the bridge down to the sidewalk. So it looks to me like they're coming along with it pretty good. I'm not anticipating if that's a weeks-long project.

It's kind of tough down there with one lane closed when you come northbound on that. Anyone else with a question for Brian?

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Well, we've got Brian talking about pedestrian safety and I was like super too broad questions that like if we did a hawk on a street that was completely within our control, what's like the price range on something like that?

We constructed the one on Johnson with a lot of equipment that we already had. Mr. Lackin, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that was somewhere around a $200,000 project by the time that, you know, if we would have purchased a lot of that stuff new. So if it's a street completely of our own, obviously the cost doesn't change a whole lot, but the expediency and the permitting process is a lot more streamlined just because You know, it's an internal planning process more so than working with multiple agencies to ensure that everything meets, you know, two or three different sets of requirements.

And then last question for you, and correct me if I'm not saying this right, because you've talked about this for a long time, so tell me if I'm right, that we can upgrade some traffic signals so that if a pedestrian has the little white button, that traffic signal's then smart enough to know to not allow a yielded green or so on and so forth. are a lot of stop lights available for upgrades like that and how much do they cost to upgrade?

So following the fatal accident that we had downtown back in early summer, engineering department commissioned a study by Mark Nichols, a traffic engineer, on converting some of our downtown lights to what is called an all-stop position. There's several other industry words for it. There's some equipment that comes along with that. I know that Mr. Light had spoken with Mark last week sometime about when the cost estimate for that was going to be back in, and we're awaiting the 30% plans for that. And so what that will do is actually turn, I guess, the three stoplights, or maybe it's more than three, the stoplights in the immediate downtown area into essentially an all-stop, that doesn't allow a left turn action while there's a green bulb. Actually, while there's a walk interval activated at all, there will be no green bulb. So it takes out that. And again, just because you have a green bulb arrow does not mean that you do not have to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. But this would just be one more tool to help ensure that does not happen. But really the only rule that is really gonna save lives is people paying attention to where they're driving regardless of what the traffic regulations are. I'm hoping that we'll have a cost estimate back on what that's going to be. There's gonna be some concrete work that's involved, some additional equipment. You're probably talking somewhere in the six figure range to convert these downtown stop lights in order for that to work.

One thing LJ, that wasn't mentioned, in the 18 months prior to the Hawk being installed over there on Johnson, we had two fatalities. And as a coincidence, they were both sisters 18 months apart. But I don't believe since that was installed, we've had a fatality on Johnson with a pedestrian. And so it was $200,000. But it's definitely worked out. And Ms. Williams was the lead advocate for that with the highway department. It's been money well spent, so.

Yeah, and we're actually working through the final plans on instituting the construction for the Safe Streets for All grant that was awarded a few years ago, so we're gonna go from five years ago, Johnson being at Dimley Road with very little pedestrian support accommodations outside of signalized intersections to a street that could potentially have two hawks, one rapid flashing beacon, intense LED lighting from Red Wolf all the way to Main Street, a lowered speed limit. And I don't think it's a coincidence that I believe since 2015, we've had either five or six pedestrian fatalities. And since the institution of that one lot alone, we haven't seen any now. Again, hopefully that's a testament to both pedestrian and motorist education, a partnership with City Water and Light, lighting up some of the dimmer intersections in the interim until we get the Safe Streets for All uniform lighting installed. But it's a community effort to help make sure that we watch out for not only those that are driving, but for pedestrians as well.

Thank you, Brian.

Thanks. Anything else?

All right, item nine, city council reports. Madam Clerk, will you call the roll? Mr. Street. I was just glad, speaking about those lights, I saw where these have been activated around St. Bernard's and the downtown area. I'm glad to see there's additional pedestrian safety being considered for these areas as well. So very good.

That's all I've got.

Mr. Mueller.

Just a quick comment. I know the safety first initiative that's been going on. I know there's a lot of people here in the audience that have worked really hard to get it on the ballot. Good job. I appreciate all your hard work. I know that's just one step, but I appreciate personally, I appreciate everything y'all have done and all the work y'all put into it.

Mr. Bryant.

Councilman McLean and I asked for a special called meeting on pedestrian safety. So I appreciate Chairman Emison and Chairman Gibson having a specially called joint meeting on that topic and appreciate the administration's efforts for us to have a good conversation. Obviously, we've had issues downtown, you know, lots of issues downtown recently. I mean, and somebody else that was recently hit. And I know we had a St. Menards nurse, I think, hit in the last two or three years in front of an OBGYN associate. So I know we've made improvements. But man, I think as vehicles get heavier and people text more and they're more distracted, just something we've got to seriously look up.

Mr. Hafner?

No, thanks.

Dr. Anthony Coleman? No, thank you. Mr. Moore?

No, ma'am.

Ms. Williams? Dr. Charles Coleman?

October the 6th is National Night Out. It might be a little ahead of time, but October 6th is National Night Out, and I'd like to make a motion if possible that we move council from October 6th to, I think, October the 8th. I'll second that motion. I'd like to amend that by adding public works under that as well.

All right, so we have a motion and a second to move the public works and the city council meeting from October 6th to October 8th. All in favor, say aye. Can I make one comment?

Sure. Just so we know, there's also an ASU home football game that night. On the 8th? On the 8th, yeah.

Were you saying that we need to hurry?

Yeah. I think Brian needs to do the marriage report again.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed.

You won't get any fish.

Anything else, Dr. Coleman? Mr. Emison? No, thank you.

Ms. Porter? No, thank you.

All right. Item 10, public comments. Anyone in the audience wish to speak on any item that was not on the agenda, please come to the podium and state your name and address.

James Owen Hines, 508 Ridgecrest. And this does kind of touch on a couple of the reports, but since they were not comments on them and they'll try for that meeting you had this something you might want to take a look at first let me remind people there is one good restaurant still downtown it's not on Main Street but it is downtown and I was eating there Thursday I usually eat there a couple times a week And on Main Street, at first, let me state, I think what's Main Street in the condition it is now is a total nightmare. I would not drive down it, so I have a solution for me. But what we see happening on Burke, people are doing one of two things. They're either parking, waiting for the light to change, and they're parking across the crosswalk, which is – That crosswalk there, though, and I saw two vehicles have this same problem, and somebody finally behind them beeped their horn for them to go on, and they were very confused drivers. First, it occurred to me that the problem is when they park back where they're supposed to, they are so far away from Burke Street that they're really not sure when it's their time to go. And I don't know, maybe is there some education or maybe we ought to, is there something we could do to let people know? But that is a problem that people are, you know, when they're waiting to cross, they're about, they're about, two car, almost two car links, links away from the, from the intersection and it's causing confusion. So I don't know what the solution is, but maybe some public safety needs to be looking at.

Thank you Mr. Ryan. Anyone else in the audience? Ma'am please state your name and address for the record.

My name is Debbie Haas, and I live at 403 Bowling Lane by University Heights Elementary School. I'm really proud to hear that the city is doing more for pedestrians. My daughter Katie was hit two weeks ago by a car when she had the white light giving her the right of way, and she looked both ways, but a car was not paying attention and hit her. Praise Jesus that she wasn't hurt any worse than she was or killed. And I'm not coming here just to complain, but to offer some other solutions as well. Downtown is a pedestrian area. It's not pedestrian friendly. I see that you've made some upgrades in the last few days. I noticed coming in that somebody pushed the button on the new crosswalk right there. It was somebody that worked in the gift shop at the hospital and they were able to cross Washington safely. But my daughter was in the crosswalk. She had the white pedestrian light giving her the right of way. However, the other vehicles had a green light that were parallel to where she was walking. Cars see green, they think they can go. I've been behind. I've been in the situation where somebody was crossing and I stopped. Car's honking behind me because they didn't know that there was somebody crossing. They just saw the green light. So even though a lot has been done, I agree that more needs to be done. Even Katie the other day walking back, she couldn't get anybody to stop for her and she's already got PTSD from being hit. So more things need to be done. Like you said, we've had people hit and while we were sitting here, somebody was hit Flint Street and Dogwood. at five o'clock, a teenager. So a lot of people are getting hit. I think that drivers are confused that they don't have the right of way all the time. So I think we need more public service announcements. I know that they were talking about the light situation where everything is red while the pedestrians cross. I agree with that wholeheartedly. But since the city's already spent lots of money on the big, beautiful sidewalks to entice people to walk downtown, shop, dine, attend events, let's put more safety precautions in place. All of downtown should be marked as pedestrian-friendly area. We may need to have signs before you come into the downtown area saying, hi, pedestrian area, slow down. decrease the speed limit add speed bumps give higher fines in that situation have more public police presence until the new traffic situation is under control and people know about it but motorists in a hurry they need to avoid downtown because this is supposed to be a place where people can get out and walk and enjoy the downtown area so I want to turn this tragedy into into a positive reality and keep pedestrians safer. If the city doesn't have the funds to put some of these in place, I'll do a fundraiser. I don't care. I want to help. If you have a committee, I'll volunteer. Sign me up. I want more people to be safe. I don't want to just talk about problems, but offer solutions as well. So let's work together so that you don't have to receive a call that your child has been injured, especially when it could be completely avoidable. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else? Please state your name and address for the record.

MATT GARRETT, Safety First Jonesboro. First off, I'd like to thank the council for forwarding on the ballot initiative that we're pushing for a $0.58 public safety tax that we got over 4,200 signatures from registered voters of Jonesboro. So I'd just like to say thanks, and we look forward to informing people and the residents of Jonesboro more about this initiative.

Thank you, Matt. Yes, ma'am. Please state your name and address, ma'am.

My name is Haley Knott Brock and I live at 2808 Spring Valley. Y'all will have to forgive me. It's been a couple of years since I have been up here and talked about stuff like this. It's so nice to see some of you too. I also want to reiterate kind of what Debbie said. You guys do a great job. Most people don't really understand what it's like to be in your position and have to manage a huge city, a growing city like Jonesboro has, especially over the past couple years. So I think you guys are doing a great job and I appreciate that so much. Approximately two weeks ago, one of my best friends, Katie, was hit down here. She was struck by her vehicle while she had the right of way. She was in the crosswalk and she was just leaving yoga and going back to her house over here on Church Street. She publicly shared her experience on Facebook. I don't know if any of you saw the post. The video is absolutely horrific. If you haven't seen it, it's very, very scary to watch. And unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. pedestrians have been hit downtown. Our community has experienced multiple accidents, pedestrian accidents this summer. At some point, we have to stop looking at these accidents as unfortunate incidences and start asking ourselves, What are we going to do to prevent the next one? What happened to Katie is especially concerning because the driver who struck her still allegedly has not received a single citation. Not one. I want to read directly from the police report real quick. Vehicle one was not towed from the scene. No signs of impairment were observed from the driver of vehicle one at the time of the incident. Nothing further? Nothing further. I struggle with those words because, in fact, something very significant did happen. A person was hit while she was crossing the street. I'm not an attorney. I'm not law enforcement. I'm not sitting in y'all's seats at all. I left this world long ago. But, and I'm not here pretending like I know every single stature because there's so many, but I do know this. We have to do better. We have to. When a pedestrian is struck by a vehicle, especially in a designated crosswalk when they have the right of way, there should be a clear and consistent process for determining exactly what happened, what laws were violated, whether impairment or distraction played a role. and whether the driver should be held accountable. There needs to be some accountability, I feel like, consistency, something that makes the pedestrian safety a priority rather than an afterthought. Thankfully, this community, we have attorneys, we have law enforcement professionals, and we have city officials, you guys, plenty more. Let's get together and talk about what we can do, establish a stronger procedure for pedestrian collisions, look at the current process, let's identify where it's failing, determine, most importantly, what legally and realistically can be changed. Nothing we do now will change what happened to Katie. Absolutely nothing. It won't erase the fear, the pain, the physical and emotional consequences. You guys can talk to her. I'm sure she'd love to talk to her after this. that she's had to live with since she was hit in the crosswalk. But perhaps we can make the next person who steps into a Jonesboro crosswalk, make sure they don't have to experience the same thing. Our citizens deserve to feel safe walking through downtown and not only just downtown and not just here just for Main Street, St. Bernard's is right down here. I had an appointment today and I counted there was like six people that were crossing the street just at one little two minute interval while I was turning into a parking lot. And, you know, we have to make sure that those people are safe to elderly residents should be able to use a crosswalk down here at the FOA without fearing that a vehicle is going to just blow through them with someone on TikTok. We can't keep waiting for the next pedestrian to be hit. We cannot keep treating these incidents as isolated incidences. And most importantly, we really can't keep accepting nothing further when there is clearly something further that needs to be done. Jonesboro can do better. johnsville can do better i'm asking you guys to and law enforcement leaders to take this seriously review what is currently in place right now um and work together to create a meaningful change that can protect the people this community maybe some i don't know that's up to you guys a harsher fine something like a traffic well anything anything for a motor vehicle um because the goal simply shouldn't be to respond after someone gets hurt. The goal should be to prevent them from getting hurt in the first place. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else? All right, Ms. Lack.

Patty Lack, 4108 Forest Hill Road. So sorry I came up here before, but what I was gonna say is that looking at the overview of our budget and our reserve is that we actually have almost $10 million more in our reserve account when you're looking at this account here. and I'm just asking one, I know that Steve can't answer the question but I think here is that we've got the money and I think like after talking to some of these guys and working so hard to get the sales tax on because there's a laundry list of needs that our city needs to be safe and just talking about the downtown area. So we've got almost $10 million extra and I'm just not understanding why our city's not spending some of that on some of the needs that are immediate that would help out in a lot of situations. So it was really kind of surprising to see that amount of money and I'm not understanding why we have that much more that's not required on that. So I'll go ahead and FOIA Steve the question tomorrow of just that I think we need to start using that money instead of taxing the people and getting their laundry list taken care of, thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lack. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Come on, Jeff. I just want to show. Jeff, please come to the podium and state your name and address.

Jeff Spencer, 701 South Floyd, Jonesboro. If you don't see the video, here's what happens.

We've got to have you at the microphone for the recording. Okay. This young man is the driver.

I'm going to speak louder because I have to do this from here. Katie walks right across in front of him.

Your response will not be on.

He crosses Washington. Then the driver comes through and gets him. I just want to say that anybody who couldn't see that driver should not be allowed to just get back in their car. They need to be checked out.

Thank you, Jim. Anyone else? All right. Hearing none, item 11, adjournment? Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. We stand adjourned.