City Council - Regular Meeting

Sorry. Hallelujah. Welcome to the see November 20th city council uh meeting. Uh pastor uh I say pastor Mayor Fred is uh is out is out for tonight. So I get you get the opportunity to hear me speak. So um call it to order. Uh we've got that's where the pastor come in. Brother Jim Harbet from Missionary Baptist Church is going to say our prayer for us and then we'll go into a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance. So please stand. uh in appreciation of our city council members. I left them a gift kind of a gift certificate for a book that helps folks who are very very busy as they are with their marriage situation. It's called the one-year love language minute devotional. Hope it'll be helpful for them. Kathy and I have experienced tremendous spiritual growth as a result of doing this book ourselves. We highly recommend it. We're making it available for free to our city council members. Appreciation for them so that they can enjoy more life at home and be more

loving here in the city council. Praise God. Let's go ahead and pray together. Uh dear father, we thank you for this time to be together. Thank you for your love for us through your son Jesus and giving us eternal life through him though we deserve eternal death. We thank you for the opportunity tonight to conduct the business of those you have established Lord our city authorities, our governing authorities. We thank you and praise you for them uh doing this work. We pray that your spirit and love and wisdom would be with them and doing so and interacting with each other and with the citizens. We thank you for the opportunity to serve you through the government Lord as these folks are doing. We thank pray you help us continue to pray for them. We pray for each one of them that they trust in you and you alone for eternal life, Lord Jesus. That they're led by your spirit in accordance with your word. In Jesus name we ask this and thank you, Father. Thank you. Amen.

Thank you, brother Jim. Uh take a moment of silence. Thanks. The

flagg of the stands nationy for all. All right. Miss Skelton. Roll call. Mr. George here. Miss Wetzel here. Miss Young. Mr. Olsen here. Mr. Bradley here. Mr. Pearson here. Mr. Gray here. Mr. Keller here. Mayor Te is absent. Mr. Smith

here. And myself. You have a quum. Did everybody get a chance to review the minutes from last meeting? Motion to approve. Second. We got a motion in a second. All in favor? I opposed. Miss Baker, what do we have this month? All right. For your viewing pleasure,

general fund revenues for the month of October total 1,670,149. Of that 917,489 was sales tax and state turn back. 475,880 was franchise fees and permits. 276,780 was all other revenue. A tax revenue comparison. The city's year-to- date is 4,598,615. The city's portion of the county tax is 5,604,962. And both those are just a touch under last year and a touch under budget. General fund expenditures for the month of October totaled 1,991,400. Of that 1,497,792 were personnel expenditures. 493608 were utilities and other street fund revenues for October totaled 873,190. Of that 531,493 was the 2021 street sales tax. 244,304 was state turnback and advalorum tax. 95,192 was interest and 2200 was street cutting permits. Street fund expenditures. Operational expenditures totaled 275,636. Of that 26,906 were personnel related expenditures. 68,730 were utilities and other capital expenses totaled 1170 and that was for trench shoring. 2021 street sales tax spending totaled 891,456 that was towards South Waterl Avenue drainage maintenance, pavement preservation, drainage projects, downtown improvements and US64 west sidewalk project. State turnback street projects totaled $811 that was towards the core of engineer project. economic development. October revenue was 100,837. Of that, 80,428 was new sales tax and rent. 20,49 was interest. October expenditures were 549,586.

That was towards Arkansas Valley Alliance, parking lot improvements, and the last installment for the pickle ball court construction. Below are the various balances of the economic development funds as of October 31st. The total of these three funds is 5,517,4832. Capital aspect assets. October revenue was 88. All of that was interest. October expenditures totaled 16,194 towards building expenses. That included a roof repair at the train depot um as well as repairs to a couple AC units. Below is a breakdown of the 2021 1 cent sales tax. Um this is the cash balance at the end of October. You see what's received, what's spent, the balance remaining. In totality, the cash balance is 23,16879871. If there are no questions, that concludes the finance report.

I have just really one quick question. So you're confident that the revenue will outpace the expenses fairly soon? Well, we're in November, so revenue is down. And I think that's probably statewide. Um, but I'm hoping that it rebounds in 2026.

Unfortunately, revenue is not something we can really control. A lot of that's based on consumer spending and taxes that come in. Any other questions? Thank you, Miss Baker. Thank you. Uh, now for the mayor's report. He's not here, but I'd like to just tell everybody hope they have a good Thanksgiving next week, spending time with their families and start of the holiday season. And uh on Black Friday, be sure to visit our local businesses so we can get that revenue up. [laughter]

All right. Uh moving on, our departmental report will be Mr. Mallet from City Corp. give us all the good updates of all the busy stuff they're doing.

Okay. Okay. [clears throat] Thank you folks for allowing me to be here again tonight to bring you up to date. It's been a little over a year since the last time I was here. So, I'm going to update you on some of the things I've talked about, maybe a couple new things, but I'll try to get through pretty quickly here. Uh, just a quick update on the solar field. Uh, we tested and completed it in October of this year, so just a couple months ago. We transferred the ownership in November, so basically earlier this month. We are currently receiving a one to one credit for all the power generated. Uh, that's on our eight largest electrical accounts, including the water and wastewater plants, which obviously those are the two by far largest accounts. And so I looked at all the bills to make sure we were receiving credit and we are as promised. And we will receive a tax rebate next year to cover half the construction which we're estimating at about $4.5 million. So uh the cost of that is again with the rebate is right at $4.5 million. We expect that to be paid back in 15 years or so with a 30-year life. So and that is a picture of the completed project and that is behind our wastewater plant out on Jimmy Law Road. uh between basically the wastewater plant and Luke Dufffield's uh rock quarry. [clears throat] Uh update on our new field services complex. If you remember, city council graciously helped us purchase two buildings at the county complex, which was the old road road department and the EMS building, both of which uh they are moving out of because they built new facilities. obviously the new 911 facil 911 facility by tech and then out on 124 is the new road department and they are currently wrapping up remodeling county road department and we expect our guys to be able to move in next week which is about three or four months ahead of

schedule. So thanks to Van Horn for helping us get because we're in rented facilities for the time being. So, I know those guys are ready to get moved in over there. And the county EMS building uh should be wrapping up by the end of the year. So, hopefully we can January, February of next year, we can start moving our other two field services. So, we'll have construction and our collection and distribution maintenance in the road department. And we'll have our service, which is meters and such, and our facilities maintenance, pump stations, and tanks uh in the other building. So, we'll have all of our field services groups in one complex. Right now they're spread out all over town. We did also build a new inventory warehouse between those two buildings. So it'll be a single location for all the parts for all of our field services. So uh we did buy two acres if if the city folks may remember on Sydney Avenue between Pilington's office and the Mexican restaurant with the thoughts that we may build an administration building there and move from where we're at down here. Uh we started looking at prices of doing that. So, we're going to be right where we're at for a pretty good period of time, I would say. Uh, but we the main needs that we have is a training center and maybe a meeting facility. That's really where where we're lacking. Uh, so we may pursue that and and and get with the city about maybe a community training center that would hold 100 150 folks. We do a lot of training. Tri County does a lot of training and maybe we could use that as a community training center and then maybe a place for board meetings and meetings with industrial prospects or something where you need a little privacy. Uh but that at this point that's probably about the most we would want to do on that two acres. There would obviously be space down the road if we ever wanted to move our office building over there at that time. But for now, I think we're just going to stick to that as our immediate focus. That's our Huckleberry Reservoir up by Dover. Uh built it in 1997. Full Lake is 460. Uh before today's rain, we're at 5 455. So we were down five feet, which isn't bad for this time of year coming

out of summer uh summer and fall. historic lowest level 442.7 over 17 feet deep which means 54% of the volume of that lake was gone. I point that out because that keeps us keeps us in in in the mindset that we're going to have to at some point in time find a way to uh to guarantee as we grow and and that reservoir becomes under more demand, we're going to need to keep uh pictures from these from from being the reality. That's where we pump. We actually pump out of the Illinois bio into the lake. That's how we keep the lake full because we don't get enough rainfall to keep it full on its own. But obviously when the lake's down, there's no water in the bio to pump. And this is just shows that basically uh we could not pump water out of the bio. So you either need to expand your waterershed, which is impossible, or find a way to keep the lake full. So the second water source, the only option for price and and functionality that we're really looking at at this point as our preferred option would be a new reservoir somewhere above the huckleberry reservoir on or near the Illinois bio or on a tribute tributary so that water can be released from the lake to keep the bofull. So if we can keep the bofuel, we can pump into the lake uh 12 months out of the year. We can keep the lake full because the lake itself can deliver 40 million gallons of water a day. The plant right now makes about 1213 in the summer. So we've got plenty capacity. We just need to make sure we have a solid volume of raw water. Uh obviously the piping that we were looking at to pipe from that lake would be about 350 million. So obviously if we don't have to do the piping, we can get the cheap version which is only 150 million. Doesn't that sound that sound cheap? Uh and it keeps uh city of do and Tri County Water, they both pull from the bio. So that would keep their raw water intakes. So it's more of a regional water supply. So right now we're just continue to explore the feasibility. Most of those areas up there in national forest. So you know talking to the forest service and the government about

getting acreage up there probably not the easiest thing to do. But right now that's the that's the most feasible option we have and until we flesh that one out and decide that one can't be done that's what we're going to continue to look at. So some final notes. Uh we did participate in Leadership Arkansas. We hosted a group this year. here. I think it's the first time they've been to Russellville. I think they went to a nuclear plant, maybe tech, and we hosted them for lunch at the Huckleberry. Um, so they were very impressed with our program, very impressed with Russville. And I think they may make that a repeat stop. Uh, and they basically picked one city out of out of Arkansas to come for the way they handle their government, way they handle the industry, and they chose us this year and mentioned they may come back. We also participated in national site selection visit. We had a a site consultant that came to our to Russellville to kind of do an audit of where we were at and give us some recommendations and she spoke very highly of everyone that was there including utilities. Holly Hall, I was out of town. She actually represented and I had several calls from different folks saying she did a bangup job. And speaking of Holly, she was nominated this year at the state convention Arkansas Water Environment Association Educator of the Year. And we also had the Arkansas Water Environment Associate Lab Analyst of the Year, Brooks Teter, out of our wastewater plant. And Randy Bradley, who is now retired, received the National Award for the the Water Environment Federation, the National Bedell Award uh for his years of service to the wastewater industry. And we also had uh one of our wastewater operators that made it into the national publication. Uh the treatment plant operator, Leonard Wit, was featured in in here. Uh that's Leonard. Uh he's he has a very interesting story. The thing that they put in here I thought was funny. He's kind of they call him Eagle Eye out there because he spots things in the sludge and he and he pulled out a class ring and a wedding ring. uh haven't found the owner of the wedding

ring and and they may not want it back, but the the class ring they they looked at they found the year and the school and they went back and they found the guy that lost it. He lost it went down the drain 10 years ago and he said, "I never thought I'd see it again, but he found it." So, uh and they actually put that story in there which I thought was kind of colorful. Uh and then obviously I have to end on a very positive note. We won the state drinking water association contest in hot springs this year obviously of all the states and then we competed after that in the regional which was Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana and we won the regional taste test and we will now be uh going to Washington DC in June of next year to hope to repeat the national best drinking water in North America like we did back in 2016 we went to Chicago. So obviously we'll keep everybody informed as we as we do that. Uh and there's a picture of all of us down there when we won the regional award. Oh well there was closing comments and I just want to thank everybody uh for the opportunity to come here. Anything we can do for you folks again we very much appreciate your support. Are there any questions before I close down? And you'll also I'll be back next month. We'll have a nomination for board replacement for next year. I didn't quite get it here in time. So you'll have to come back next next month. Any questions?

I don't have a question, but I want to thank you. Uh I travel a lot and I drink other cities water and it's just nothing like coming home. The water we have, it's it's amazing. And then second, um I've noticed a couple of uh leaks in town here lately and I called and your office was on it like that and I they they had the place dug up and fixed and everything. I just want to give you all a shout out for the great job that your operations folks uh I was just really impressed like wow they're already out there really good job so I appreciate it.

It's one of the good things about having a hometown utility we're all here ready to spring into action. You don't have to call somewhere in Little Rock to get somebody to respond. So um on the one to one for the solar panels which I'm super stoked about by the way. Uh how long are they going to give you the one to one credit? I don't at this point there is no end to it and it's state law that once you are in you're grandfathered in for the duration of that. So I mean if we built another one right we taking a chance and maybe not getting that.

Yeah. And I had heard that from a residential versus uh commercial. There was some discussion of was it 30 years or is in perpetuity. So I'm glad that we got the grandfather on that. Um it's my last question. Oh, the $150 million for the since it would benefit multiple areas. Have you pursued obviously asking, you know, county, other cities, the core of engineer, several other groups? Yeah, I mean, could they pitch in on that?

We visited with with all the other utilities that would benefit from that. and actually city of Marlton as crazy as it sounds the distance it's not as crazy as it may seem

when you look at some of the other options they have that they have to go out on their own to do uh so yes we've had those conversations with them and and obviously we're keeping them informed as we move forward a regional effort with with support from all different three two or three different counties obviously helps push forward anything through the legislative channels that you would need to get approval to do that and obviously we're going to be looking for grant money yeah uh that could help fun something like that partners such as game and fish because this would be the good thing about not having a pipeline tied directly to it. You can have recreation, you can have fishing, you can have swimming, whereas Huckleberry because you have a direct pipeline, we we limit all that. So this will be a bigger, deeper lake with a lot more recreational opportunities. So hopefully we'll get some partners there as well. Sweet.

Yeah. Also, I have friends that bring gallon jugs when they come to my house so that they can take the drinking water home. So here. Anything else? Okay. Well, good luck, Mr. Mallet, in the upcoming award deal. No, no pressure. I mean, y'all only won it last time, so second best might not sound or look good on the trailer. Yeah, I mean, it's same water. Surely we win again, right? If you Hey, if you win, you got to get championship rings for for the whole staff. Talk about that for everybody. [laughter] Thank you. Okay, personnel. Mr. Gray,

no report this month. It's the easy month. Uh, finance, Mr. Keller, I know you don't I know you've got something. Yeah, I've got to throw a monkey wrench into the smooth sailing. Sorry. Um, from our 5:30 meeting this evening. Uh, it's considerate item one is a consideration of a reimbursement request for the third quarter expenses for the Boys and Girls Club in the amount of $34,57248. And we present item one is a motion to adopt. There's a motion to adopt on the floor. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I

oppose. Motion passes. From our meeting last Tuesday. Item one is an appropriation from the general fund carryover balance in sum of $213,8.75 to fund uh winter stipens for the general fund department salaries. We present item one as a motion to adopt. There's a motion on the floor. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes.

Item two uh is an appropriation from the general fund carryover balance amount of $29,65.50 to fund the winter stipens for the street fund employees. We present item two is a motion to adopt. Item two, got a we have a motion. Any what are you supposed any conversation? Sorry, Robert order. What? Yep. Any comments? No. All in favor?

Opposed. Motion passes. Item three is consideration of an ordinance to implement the city's electronic funds payment procedures originally outline out outlined in resolution 1840. I move that we read item three once by title only with a short explanation. We have a motion for ordinance uh for the electronic funds. Do we have a second? We have a second. All in favor? I. Any oppose? Motion passes.

It's an ordinance. Do we have to do a roll call? We got the Yep. You were doing the rules. Suspending the rules, weren't you? Yes, it was. Okay. Okay. An ordinance submitting the fiscal code for the city of Russville, Arkansas, adopted by ordinance 2520 by a new chapter to the code. For the purposes, this ordinance, if passed, would codify the already existing electronic fund transfer that was adopted by the city in resolution 1840.

Motion to adopt. Have a motion to adopt and a second. All in favor? I oppose. Okay. Do a roll. We got to do a roll call. All right. Let's do roll call. It's a ordinance. I didn't go to the mayor's school. Robert's rules of order over here. So, we're just we're going to get through this. [laughter] Mr. Keller. Yes. Mr. Pearson. Yes. Mr. George. Yes. Miss Wetzel. Yes. Mr. Olsson.

Yes. Mr. Bradley. Yes. Mr. Gray. Yes. And here. 70.

I move we enact the emergency clause.

All right. We got a We got a first and a second for the emergency clause. Is this a roll call, too? All right, let's do a roll call.

Mr. [clears throat] Keller, yes. Mr. Bradley, yes. Mr. George, yes. Miss Wetzel. Yes. Mr. Olsson? Yes. Mr. Pearson? Yes. Mr. Gray?

Yes. Item four is consideration of a resolution authorizing the mayor and the city clerk to execute documents necessary to increase the city's monthly contribution to employees health savings accounts to 200 a month for employees with individual plans and 380 a month for employees with family plan. We present item four as a motion to adopt. We have a motion to adopt for the resolution. Is that a roll call? All in favor?

Any oppose? Motion passes. Item five is consideration of a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk treasur to accept the lowest responsible bid for the Russell Municipal Airport for uh from allsp spec roofing for the repairs of seven airport hangers and 5a is the appropriation of $213,361 from the economic development capital fund 27 for those uh for that maintenance. and present items five and 5A as a motion to adopt.

We have a motion to adopt the resolution along with the appropriation five and 5A on the floor. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion passes. Item six is cons is consideration of a resolution authorizing the mayor and city clerk treasurer to execute an agreement of support for the certified local government grant and authorize the director of sustainability and resilience uh/historic preservation officer to apply for the grant. We present item six is a motion to adopt. We have a motion to adopt item six for resolution. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes.

Item seven's consideration of a resolution authorizing the mayor and the city clerk treasurer to enter into a lease agreement with E Ritter Holdings LLC for downtown Underground Conduit access. We present item seven is a motion to adopt. We have a motion to adopt the resolution. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion passes. And that's one of the last ones for the downtown project. Thank goodness. So, the end is near.

Um, item eight is considerate, I'm sorry, item items eight and nine. Uh, item eight is consideration of a resolution to adopt the 2026 general fund budget. I'm just going to do them separately. We uh present item eight is a motion to adopt. We have a motion to adopt resolution for the budget 2026. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item nine is consideration of a resolution to adopt the 2026 street fund budget. And we present item nine as a motion to adopt. Got a motion to pass item nine, the resolution for the 26 street fund budget. All in favor?

I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item 10 is an appropriation for the 2021 sales tax capital fund 07 in the amount of $429,8863 to purchase and equipped five police SUVs. Um we present item 10 as a motion to adopt. We have a motion to adopt an appropriation for some police vehicles. All in favor? I any opposed? Motion passes.

Uh item 11 can be dispensed since we uh did that with item one from tonight. I didn't do anything to remove that or Okay. Item 12 is an appropriation uh from the Russellville EMS service fund 10 in the amount of $6,600 to fund the training of RPD and RFD handlers in life saving measures for K9 officers. We present item 12 as a motion to adopt. We have a motion to adopt item 12. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion passes. And uh that is the last item on the finance agenda this evening. Sir, thank you. Uh the mayor left me a a good night because I only got uh one item on here. [laughter] Uh we have a consideration of an ordinance amending the land subdivision and development code for the city of Russellville adopted by ordinance number 2444 and for other purposes. This is the third and final readings. I move we suspend the rules. Dispense with the reading requirement. Read by short title with explan or read by title with a short explanation for the third and final time. Second.

We have a motion and a second to lead to read by title and short explanation. All in roll call. Just going to be a roll call. Okay. All in favor? I

oppose. Passes. ordinance submitting the land so division development code for the city of Russell Arkansas adopted by ordinance number 2444 and for other purposes. This ordinance if passed would amend the uh current Lanc Development Code. So that it would amend the specific part uh of article 5 section 5.3 the final plat application requirement uh to include now a base flood elevation uh designation within the final plat. Motion to adopt. Second.

Got a motion. A second to adopt the ordinance. Uh, we get a roll call.

Mr. Gray? Yes. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mr. Pearson? Yes. Mr. Bradley? Yes. Mr. Olsen? Yes. Miss Wetzel? Yes. Mr. George? Yes. Passed. Ordinance passes. Well, I'll take uh one final motion. I'll second that. Have a good evening. Have a good week.