City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Jonesboro City Council meeting, 01/20/2026. And I'll go ahead and begin us. If we would go ahead and start, I'll lead us in the pledge allegiance and councilman McLean to lead in the

the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for just this night, just for your faithfulness, your goodness. Lord, I just thank you for the city that we get to call call home. I pray you'd be with our men and women that watch our city and protect us. Pray you'd give us wisdom, direction, and clarity on leaving our city. We thank you for all you do in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Would you please go ahead and cast your ballot on presence? And we do have enough members present for tonight's meeting. So, council, it's always a pleasure to stand before you this evening and I have several council members. I would like to come forward recognize Brian Emerson. If you would please come forward and doctor Charles Coleman. Don't know what forward.

Had but it's Permanent conviction.

It's Brian and Doctor. Coleman, so.

First of all, I always am proud to work with our council members and more importantly, the dedication that they have to our community. And time flies by in a hurry. So I'm honored tonight to go ahead and present several pins, in recognition of their years of service. And so councilman Emerson, here's your five year pin. Congratulations, sir, and we appreciate your commitment to serve.

And

the next councilman, I'd swear he's been here a whole lot longer than this pen recognized. But we are let me see, Charles. I think it says fifteen years, if I'm not mistaken, as city council. So again, we appreciate your support and due diligence on behalf of the city of Jonesboro. We wanna say thank you.

And before we hear from the ridge, we're gonna switch a little bit, and I think it's always important too that we always say great things about our community and good things that are going on. And so many of you are well aware that some of us attended the AML conference this past week, and it's always nice to be recognized among your peers. And in doing so, it's the commitment of our community and what we have done. And so there are several awards that I wanna bring back to the city of Jonesboro. We had four city council members that were there at the convention that were also recognized for that.

One of which was honorable mention of tourism and development creative culture. We were honorable mention in that category. And then the city was winner honorable of of technology tourism and security. You should be a handful. And then winner as well in the infrastructure and water category.

So when we go to AML, obviously, we're recognized and compete against cities that are 20,000 and above. And to garner these awards in front of them is an honor. We were the most recognized city of 2025 with these honors. But here's another honor that I'd like to have. If I think we have some youth in the room, if y'all would please come forward and just kind of stand around me, and then we'll take a picture afterwards.

This award was recognized for the Mayor's Youth Advancement Council for their role in Jonesboro being named 20 thou 2,025 volunteer community of the year by the governor's advisory commission on national service and volunteerism in Arkansas Municipal League. They recognize the NYAC because of its important work that they do. Students are vital to this community. They represent the future of Jonesboro Civic leadership, and they transition to statewide recognition. Jones Boro named 25 volunteer community of the year award recipient in the most youth engagement category.

It's cosponsored by Engage Arkansas and the Arkansas Municipal League. This honor reflects the city's commitment to the youth engagement engagement and civic participation from all. You know, the mayor's youth council started five years ago. We had forty nine forty nine that began. We're up to 99 students.

And from the inception, today, they have volunteered almost 1,200, 1,178 volunteer hours in the past year alone. The students work directly with organizations and the city on real life challenges, health and safety, communications, planning, beautification, and inclusion. They are a symbol. These students impact Jonesboro with hands on, service driven projects, and the outcomes are very focused. You know, some of their key accomplishments.

Jonesboro four one one app, recognized in the congressional app challenge by congressman Crawford. Spraying Community Fair serving North Jonesboro families. The Giving Tree supporting residents in need, community cleanups, Earth Day events, coding camps, and youth led safety outreach outreach. Student led efforts, though, have an impact citywide. So, again, in my appreciation to the students, I wanna say thank you for your leadership.

You're doing so by example and commitment. I also wanna recognize our city staff, schools, and community partners, and parents, and guardians who support the program, reinforce the NYAC as a way for any student to be in law involved in civic life. So as our city motto always says, we're always moving. This is reaffirmed by inclusive civic engagement and youth leadership. So this award, we, as a committee, wanna say thank you very much, and we're gonna put these up on the highway signs as they come into the city of Jonesboro.

So thank you, Mayak. Appreciate y'all. Let's get a picture up here. All right. Thank you very much, counsel, for being present this evening.

All right. On our next special presentation, I was asked by City Councilman Moore to have an update regarding the construction update on the Ridge Athletic Center. So if you would, Craig, please come forward.

Mayor, council, thank you for letting us come and talk about some exciting things. My name is Craig Rickard. I'm the executive director the Jonesboro Advertising and Promotion Commission, and we're here to talk about The Ridge. If you've been along Ray Street, major Sam's Club run, you have no doubt seen the walls are going up at The Ridge, and people are very excited about this. I just wanna give you a quick update on where things stand in this process right now.

Currently, the great crews and subs at Nav Holtz are working on decking and roofing of the main biggest gym area that you see closest to Ray Street, 65,000 square feet in that part of the building, eight basketball courts, 16 volleyball courts in that area. The natatorium footings, the natatorium is about 40,000 square feet, and they are currently putting the footings in for that. So as soon as those get in place, we'll start putting up walls there as well. Concrete is the name of the game. And also steel.

You can see by those pictures right there, steel is being installed in the main gym. Steel is also going in the event center, which is the four court gym towards the back of the building on the southern side. So we're very excited at the point we're at. We're hitting a lot of milestones right now. Here's some pictures from the drone just a couple of days ago.

It gives you a real good idea of what you're seeing. As you can probably tell, this shot, you're kinda hovering over Ray Street looking to the Southwest, and you see the decking and roofing going in there on the 8 Court gym area. That's the main gym that faces the front of the building. Taking another look at those 35 foot panels going up, this is from the Southwest corner looking back toward you see Sam's Club there in the top left corner of your screen, and you get a pretty good idea. And just to put on the map for you here, here's what you're looking at.

The main gym, the competition pool, the rec pool, and the event center. All of these are indoors. Both those pools are indoors. That's about a 180,000 square foot footprint on the Main Floor. Tack on about 20,000 square feet on what will be a 2nd Floor will be offices, meeting rooms, conference rooms, atrium type areas, and that gets us that 200, 203,000 square foot footprint for this building.

So, very excited and if you just take a note here, one great thing the crews have have done in in building this place is that we're doing concrete tilt up walls. This is a fortress. This is gonna be such an asset and a well built part of our community. In the bottom right corner of your screen, you see some wall panels that are ready to be installed by that massive crane. Each one of these panels weighs about a 100,000 square 100,000 pounds. That is how massive this structure is. So you're getting to see the scale. So some pictures a lot of folks haven't seen yet. Let's take a look inside. Here's some really cool renderings of what you're gonna see when the ridge is complete.

This would be the first thing you see when you walk in. Of course, some things that might be some small changes in color things like that. But this is the entryway into the building, a reception area right there where you walk in. As you turn to your right, you could see the entrance in the natatorium for the athletes. The entrance for the spectators is on the other side.

And you get a real good idea of how bright this gonna be. If you would turn your corner to the right, you will see the Ridge store where we'll be able to sell items for tournaments, items about Jonesboro. I imagine there'll be some Red Wolf stuff in there as well, and you see the ticket office down there around the corner. The eight court gym not only will have tilt tilt bleachers for people to see taking the games on the Ground Floor, but we have an overlook on the 2nd Floor where people can, as you can see in this picture, pull up a chair, have their meal, watch the games, and see many courts all at once. So if you've got kids in different spots in the gym, you can keep tabs on many of them at the same time.

Other parts of the building, this will be the showcase, this beautiful natatorium that we are putting in, about 40,000 square feet, 1,250 spectator seats, four diving boards, two one meter boards, two three meter boards, and that will be such an asset to this community. 50 meter competition, about 10 extra meters there at the end for the diving. What you don't see in this picture is the bulkhead, which is the part that will go over the pool and be able to move back and forth to set different lengths of the pool for competition distances. Other things to take a look at are the cafe, which is very near the front of the building. We have room for about a 175 seats, I believe, in this area.

There'll be other places where people can sit and enjoy a meal. This kitchen at the The Ridge is a full commercial kitchen. This is if you call it a concession stand, you're gonna have to I might have to have a word with you because this is the real deal. This is we want hot dogs, you got it. You want a slice of pizza, you'll have it.

But this is a full scale commercial kitchen because we wanna be able to host fantastic events in this facility, and we're gonna be able to. And one of the things we're super excited about in this community, the outdoor water park, two big slides, about a 30 foot drop from top to bottom, and the lazy river which we've expanded and made even bigger. So this will be a wonderful asset for our community that we're very excited to share with everybody. Some other updates besides construction. As you know, sports facilities companies is going to manage this facility for us.

Sports facilities out of Clearwater, Florida manages close to a 100 properties like this across the country, everything from Baseball Parks of America up in Branson, to our place here, to Bryant Park in New York City. They are well reputed and excellent at what they do, and they've been fantastic partners. In the last week or so, they have hired Brandon Schrader as the general manager of the ridge. Brandon currently is the county administrator for Craighead County, has a fantastic background in programming, in parks and rec, and he did a little construction project himself with the new courthouse over there a couple blocks away. So he is well versed.

He also was part of Batesville's parks and rec department when they built their aquatics and community facilities. So he is used to projects like this, and we're very lucky to have him. Our hiring matrix kind of pans like this over the next few months. By June, we hope to have the following positions, hire the director of ops, marketing, director of business development, and a finance director hired out there by sports facilities at the Ridge. We are still about a year or so from opening up. We're excited about that. And as part of that, we are exploring sponsorships. We will have some names that you might recognize in various places around the building, and we're very excited to have some partners that are coming along with us on that ride. So that's my quick update. I could talk about it ad nauseam.

I'm slightly excited about this. If I had another kid, this would be it. I just so excited to see this project come for our community and just so thrilled to have a part of it myself. So I'll entertain any questions from y'all, if anybody has anything.

Rick, thank you for the update.

You left out one important piece of information.

When is it gonna be open?

When is it gonna be open? Oh, well, that is the million dollar question, isn't it? We are on schedule. I've just talked to Napholtz and we're looking good. We've been saying first quarter twenty twenty seven. And so I think I feel pretty confident about that. We gotta get through this winter. This weekend is is messing with us a little bit, I'm sure, but we I'm told we're pretty much right on schedule. The original deal was to be done by the 2026, but we know how construction goes, especially in the scale of this project, project of this scale. The other thing to remember, if you can recall last May, how rainy the month of May was for us, and that set us way back.

But the crew has been working pretty much six days a week out there when they can, and we have all but caught up. We are doing a really good job. So I'd say we are we're right where we should be. And when you take into the scale of this project, the size of this site, the size of this building, it's remarkable that we are on schedule like we are.

Greg, I mentioned at A and P, but I think I'd be amiss if I didn't mention it in this forum as well. I was at the meet at the University of Memphis this last weekend, had teams from Missouri, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas. I'm sure I'm missing a few states, but there was a group from Louisiana that was right behind me and they had heard of our natatorium and the rack and they were excited to be part of it when it gets here. So that says a lot from that far away.

We're pretty excited and of course when we talk about what a revenue generator this is gonna be for our city it's going to bring tax revenue, it's going to fill up restaurants and hotels and we're very confident in that. Jerry Morgan is here, Chairman of the A and P Commission. He just want to update the council on some of the numbers and the trends we've seen in hotels and restaurants. Jerry? Were you going to do that, Jerry?

I think Matt's going to

go first. Oh, Matt's going to go first? Okay. I'm sorry. Matt? Matt is, of course, head of the public facilities board, the owners of the site. We are the A and P as the tenants, I guess. Update.

Craig, thank you so much for the update. It's exciting to see. And I certainly, a member of this community share your excitement in this project and I know that you've worked very hard and on behalf of public city board, thank you for all your work. I know that you spent a lot of time and energy to see the project to this point and we'll continue to do that. So thank you for your work.

I appreciate that. For those of you all that don't know me, I'm Matt Motylewski and I've had the pleasure of being the Chairman of the Public Facilities Board for a number of years now and served on that board, I think for close to fifteen years. It's been a long time. I don't know, I can't remember exactly how long, but it's been a long time and it's pleasure to serve on that, Brian Emerson, formerly on that board and other. So it's a great way to be part of the community.

I did want to take an opportunity to address the council because in the position as the Chairman of the Polk facilities board, it is critical that we get sports tourism right. And I think the Ridge is off to a great start and I think I can agree with Craig's comments here. But I think to make it all really work, we issued bonds of over $60,000,000 for this project. That's a huge burden and we need to make sure that we can satisfy that burden and the way that we do that is through hotel stays and through people going out to eat. So we need people coming into town and we need people to stay here and we can't just rely on The Ridge in my opinion order to that.

I think we need to start thinking about tourism overall in our programming overall, not just at The Ridge and that includes two other parks that are primary to that and one of those is Southside and the other is Joe Mac Campbell Park. I prepared some notebooks that I will give each one of you all here, but I want to touch on a few things. But before I really get into the heart of what I wanna wanna say first, I wanna be part of the solution. That's why I'm here. That's why I volunteered on the Polk Achilles board.

That's why I volunteered to coach soccer for the last decade and volunteered in other capacities for other boards and organizations in this community in this area because I wanna be a part of the solution. Some of the things that I'm gonna say are tough. I'm gonna be honest with you, they're tough. But we need to hear them because I want to come to a collective understanding of where we are so that we can make sure that we're being thoughtful about our community and how we proceed. So if you all will bear with me, I promise you this relates to the Ridge athletic facility and sports tourism overall, but I do think it's imperative that I give you a little bit of background first, so that we have this shared understanding of where we are today.

So if you've got any questions as I go, please feel free to jump in and ask me for those. As far as background, like I said, I volunteered to coach soccer for years and in that coached City Stars, Revolution, coached junior high teams, volunteered to coach for the high school and now coached team for the Arkansas legends. I've always volunteered my time to do that because I believe in giving back to the young people of our community and watching them develop and grow through sport. As part of that service, I volunteered on the Revolution Board for a number of years and was a board member and then subsequently the president of that board. On that board, Danny Kapalas, our former parks director was the self appointed treasurer of that board.

That was the one position that was never open for election or even frankly discussion. Danny would prepare a one or two page spreadsheet that he would present to the board periodically that represented what he said was the financial state of the organization. One of the line items on that was a entry field usage fee. Some of you are probably familiar with this issue. That field usage fee was questioned not only by me, but other members of the board multiple times.

The problem with the field usage fee was Danny said that was what Revolution had to pay to help offset field maintenance cost at Joe McCann will park. Well, one of the board members undertook it to go look for that fee. He looked for a check from Revolution to the city for either a field usage fee or for the roughly 20 some odd thousand dollars that was represented on the financials. That occurred in 2024, and I'll tell you, it didn't exist. Line item of receivables by Jonesboro showed no payment had ever been received by Revolution or City Stars for that.

Now many of you might still be confused. I was confused at the time about the relationship between Revolution and City Stars and the city. At the time, I didn't understand that City Stars Booster Club was a separate entity legally from the city. The name is misleading. I didn't recognize that Revolution was separate from CityStar's Booster Club, but they are. And so this check, this payment was representative been made, it wasn't. Danny was confronted about that. Originally, he stuck to this representation. That's what it was for. Ultimately, when presented with the facts, he did relent and say, you know what, you're right, it's not ever been paid.

I keep that in the account, I use it for whatever may be needed. Example was given by a golf cart. The point is, is that for years, Danny had misrepresented to the board about what this fee was and what it went to. And as the president of the board, I felt like I had a fiduciary relationship to not only the players and their parents who paid for dues to be part of Revolution, revolution, but also the donors that had given their money in reliance on the representations that have been made to them about the use of their money. And that was one of the representations made.

So I took that concern to the mayor. I asked for a meeting in July 2024. And I told the mayor about this concern. He said, hey, this is a real problem. I'm concerned that he's lying about money. Generally, where I come from, that's a big red flag. The mayor's first comment to me was, well, Matt, he's probably paying himself. And I said, mayor, I'm not accusing him of that. We were sitting in your office. I said, all I could tell you is is I don't know what's happening to it, but I'm very concerned.

I'm troubled that I've made representations to donors and to players and their parents about money and I can't tell you where it's going. He said don't worry about it, we're gonna get to the bottom of it. We'll we'll find out what's happening to to the bottom of it. Great. That's what we need. We need some transparency and some accountability. I will tell you, as you look through these packets, that didn't happen. You'll see a bunch of text messages from me to the mayor. There were calls and meetings in addition to those. I would say just for me alone, there's over 40 points of contact asking for something to be done about this from July 2024 through April 2025.

And I can tell you nothing was done. It's hard. It's tough. But I want to point out a couple of things in this packet that you'll see. In January 2025, I was able to get a meeting with the mayor. It was me and another board member or incoming executive director, the mayor, Mr. Richardson, some other people from the administration, and presented a preliminary proposal, again, in an effort to try to have some accountability and transparency with regard to these programs. And the ask was, let's remove this from City Stars. Let's have an account that Mr. Partee can see, that he can audit, that he can if we need money, we'll go to him.

Mayor said absolutely. That's what we're gonna do. Give me two weeks. In that meeting, we talked about these financial concerns again because they really hadn't been addressed. I remind you this was from July '24 until January 25. They hadn't been addressed. And in that meeting, the mayor again said, well, he's probably paying himself with money. Again, I I don't know what he did with it. I don't know to this day. And I'm not making that accusation. I wanna be clear about that. All I know is there's a misrepresentation about the money. The mayor said give him two weeks. You'll see text messages in here from me to the mayor begging him to respond, begging for something to happen. I actually got concerned at one point that maybe I somehow got the wrong numbers.

I texted his other, she's got two cell phones, texted the other cell phone. Are you getting these messages? I'm concerned you're not getting these messages, but something has to be done. I'll tell you nothing was ever done. Fast forward toward April, but in between this time in February to April, we had to get one of the premier tournament directors in this region, not Arkansas, the entire region.

They put on dozens and dozens of the biggest tournaments in Memphis. I don't know if you all are familiar with the soccer complex. It's a big complex out in Collierville, host tournaments every weekend, has huge economic impact. And so one of the things that I wanted to do that I've talked with various councilmen about and A and P commissioners about is the need to really maximize sports tourism opportunities. This is part of where it fits in with the Ridge.

This gentleman agreed to be our tournament director to put on tournaments. I think Mr. Morgan has got some numbers that can share with you later about the impact of a roughly 60 team tournament and what that could have done. We gave dates to the Parks Department and we're told we could tentatively schedule those but you'd have to have a full meeting to see if the park's available. We were shut out of the park, couldn't even put on a tournament, couldn't even bring this guy in to try to help our community.

I'll cut some of this down. A lot of this information is in here and I'll encourage you to look at it. I'll be glad to answer questions later. I know this is a lot and I appreciate your attention so much. In April, the mayor sent a text message, you'll see the text message inadvertently to one of the board members talking about canceling revolution.

You talk about a knife to the heart. I've donated hundreds and hundreds of hours to these kids to try to provide them a pathway to develop through youth sport. And our mayor on one hand was telling me, we're going to to the bottom of this, we're going fix it, we're going to make it right. And on the other hand, inadvertently sent a text saying he's going cancel the program. Hundreds of kids and families would have been affected.

It was apparent to me in that moment that not only was nothing going to happen, no transparency, no accountability, but it was worse. And so in an effort to try to bring some attention to this, I resigned as well as our executive director and the remainder of the board. Those resignations are in here. You'll see those, you can read them. The interesting thing about that is in anticipation that resignation, was still trying to take care of our kids the best way I could.

So I had a phone call with Ms. Duncan and the mayor. There's emails there that kind of confirm these phone calls. And I talked about, hey, why don't you look at maybe bringing in a third party to run this programming? That'll get it away from Danny and the city, these misrepresentations, it'll provide clarity, it'll provide high level programming and it could provide a pathway to have sports tourism opportunities that we really need.

They're crucial for us as a city. And so you'll see an exchange of emails there where I recap and summarize at that point ten months worth of frustration on trying to get a response from the administration, from the mayor to get something done. One of the things I want to point out is, is miss Duncan did respond by emails. Each time I emailed her, the mayor did not respond and importantly, never refuted a thing I said. Never took issue with it.

Never never clarified a point. That's important. And I think it's important because as soon as we resign, the mayor gets on KIT and says the kids are his priority. We're gonna make sure we take care of this. That's number one.

Well, that's what I've been hearing for almost a year, and it hadn't happened. I've got in here too some additional information. Not only did the mayor not do anything, you saw the tourism awards. The administration nominated Danny for sports tourism person of the year in October '5, knowing that for then over a year concerns had been expressed about misrepresentations that he had made regarding finances, City Star structures, conflicts of interest, etcetera. That information is in here.

And instead of addressing those, it was more important that we put form over substance. That we gave a public image that everything was good and everything was fine. So let's just keep doing what we're doing. The mayor also said that he was gonna get an audit of City Stars, which is interesting because when you see the email exchanges that I had with miss Duncan, originally on the phone call, I was told they didn't really know much about City Stars, but if I wanted something done with soccer, I'd have to go to that board. Later, it looked like we had a little more information about City Stars.

But if we don't know anything about it, I don't know how we get an audit of it, but we had one. And is a clip in here that's interesting and I would encourage you guys to go back and look at a particular finance meeting where that audit was presented. All right, Councilman McClain asked a really and he asked Danny, he said, so if I do work for City Stars, I get a $10.99, I don't get paid in cash. Mr. Kapalas stepped up here to this podium and he said, correct, absolutely nobody is paid in cash.

You'll see an excerpt in here of the transcript from that finance meeting where that line is omitted. I don't know why, but that's a really important line to leave out. Given the history that you'll see in here and the concerns about finances and money, to leave out that line in that critical juncture is very troubling to me. I don't know what it means, but I just know it's troubling. I'd encourage you go back and look at it.

You'll see a timestamp on that meeting in the photograph from there. I think it's easy in this moment to just say, well, that was all Danny. He has now resigned. We all know the Department of Justice is investigating or did or was, don't know the status of that. So it's easy to blame. But I wanna quickly talk about a couple of things, and I'm gonna get the the heart of this. Okay? Just wanted to get background out and I apologize it's so lengthy, but it's a lot of information. But recently, I coached this team, volunteer, wonderful, amazing 12 and 13 year old girls. Great.

All members of this community, their parents. And they just wanna play soccer. So I texted our soccer coordinator and asked for a field on December 12 and was told no, lights at the parks out there. But parks are gonna be closed maybe till March and somebody would follow-up with me. So I followed up on December 23, have not heard anything?

No, parks closed, lights at the park. You'll see pictures and some advertisements in here. I started going out to the park because I knew that wasn't true because December 21, one of my daughters participates in what's called the Olympic Development Program and they held an event out at Joe Mac. So I knew that people were using the park. I was out there and my daughter was out there. And frankly, they should be. That's what it's for. We've got these wonderful turf fields. Let's use them. Right?

Again, followed up and was eventually directed to Mr. Stearns for response. Mr. Stearns said the same thing, parks closed. And this is no shot, by the way, on either our soccer coordinator or Mr. Stearns. They're just a messenger. Understand that. Okay? Closed. But I had been going out there and you'll see pictures that I dated. I took pictures of people using the park every single time I was out there. Soccer fields, playground, walking, all the things. Park was very active. I'm glad glad for that.

But I was continually denied access. Interestingly, when mister Stearns responded to me, he copied mister Richardson on the email, which I found very peculiar. I know Ms. Duncan will appreciate this, but a park is a public forum under the law, and you can't deny equal access to a public forum. You have to provide access on the same terms and conditions, and I knew that I was being denied access on the same terms and conditions. And while I could tolerate that personally, I was not willing to tolerate that on behalf of the kids that I volunteered to coach. It's not fair to them to not get access. They have to go out to a park that's muddy. I was told to go to Miles Park, could use that one. I went out and took pictures of Miles Park.

Muddy, there's no nets, goals are in disrepair if you can call them goals, but everybody else got to go to situation just this morning, Premier Training Academy sent a letter separating their relationship with Revolution. I wanna be clear, I have nothing to do with Premier Training Academy. Know some of the people involved, they're wonderful people. So I'm not speaking on their behalf. I just read their public statement. And it's included in here as well. So you all can have the benefit of reading it if you like. But they severed their relationship. And when you read their statement, again, I can't speak on their behalf, but I think it speaks for itself. A lot of the same problems I'm describing.

Misrepresentations, misinformation, denial of promises, etcetera. My point with all that is, is that we're at a crossroads. I know I emailed you all on December 10. And I encouraged us as a community. While the Department of Justice investigation into Danny Kapalis is tough, and no community wants to go through that, it is an opportunity for us as a community to pause and to say, wait a minute, is what we were doing the right thing for our community?

And even if it was back then, is it the right thing moving forward? I encouraged us to pause and to get a sports advisory panel. I want to applaud Mr. Gibson. Following that, Mr. McClain and Mr. Bryant expressed some support for that. Mr. Gibson took some steps on public works committee and to reactivate the Parks and Rec board. And I appreciate that. I think it's an incredible first step. I wanna thank you for that. I think that was important. But I would ask the council to empower that committee or start another one, whatever you guys see fit, to really vet all the options for us to pause. And this is part of the solution that I wanna be to.

Because we need these things to be active. We need Southside and Joe Mac, just like the Ridge to be active. In order for this to work, and I can tell you from my experience on public facilities board, this is key. All of these have to be hand in glove. And we really need that committee to be empowered to vet all of various options. There's a lot of options out there, and I won't try to go through them or pretend to know them all because I don't. Some communities use a vendor model, just like the organization Craig that's gonna be doing the ridge, right? That's a vendor model. And they obviously do it all over the country at a very high rate. I think it's great.

I think for some of our other sports, we ought to at least consider that. But the bottom line is, I would ask that this council be thoughtful in how we proceed. I know you will. I have said that repeatedly in my information. You'll see it in the emails when you read them. I believe in this group. You wouldn't serve on this on this council if you didn't have the best answers to Jonesboro Hart. I believe that. You could do a million other things with your time. You guys have lots of important things to do.

But I believe in you and that's why I'm here asking you, pleading with you to take the time to empower this committee to get this right. Let's stop making rash decisions. Let's stop just hurrying to put form over substance. Let's take the time to get this right. And I appreciate your time tonight. I'll be glad to answer whatever questions you have. I'll provide these these binders to you with the information that I've referenced. It's got the text, the emails. It's got all the things. Okay?

Any questions from anybody at this point for me? Again, I apologize for the length of time. I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you. If there's anything I can do in the future, please reach out. With that, I believe Mr. Morgan is going to provide some update on some financing. While he's doing that, I'll pass these out.

You, mister Marleski. Jerry Morgan, chair of the Jonesboro Advertising Promotions Commission. I've been doing this for seven or eight years now. You know, on the screen in front of you is the hotel revenues for 2025 and all the years prior to that. As you can see, we had 942,000 on the 3% hotel revenue.

That was a 0.6% increase from 2024. If you saw that we were down 4.2% in 2024, we were on a pretty good trend from 2021 to 2022 and then kind of leveled out over the last couple of years. I will say, I'll go through that one and then our one percent hotel revenue follows the same trend as you can see. Those funds are specifically used for city partnerships with was the soccer fields that we I think we started that in 2023. We just finished paying for that at the 2025.

So we have about $300.00 a year coming into that fund that could be used going forward for another I will reiterate some of Matt's topics. Again, it's very uncomfortable to talk about these things but I think it's important that we get it right going forward. You know, again, one of the big things that we did a couple years ago is we approved 2 and a half million dollars towards soccer fields. A and P paid for half of that. When it was presented to us in 2023 by the previous parks and rec director and Matt Motoleski in the A and P meeting, meeting, the plan was for turfing the fields so we could increase our rec league and and also host outside tournaments.

That was the plan. That was the economic driver behind it. Fast forward to the beginning of last year and we did partner with Matt and M. We had the opportunity to I think host over four outside tournaments this past fall. We did get some numbers from sports facilities. One tournament would have brought in about 60 teams and would had an economic impact of a million and a half dollars per weekend. That would have been total of 6,000,000 up to $6,000,000 in economic impact to our hotels. And you can see what this would probably do to our hotel revenue. It obviously increase it. I will reiterate what Matt said.

We were denied getting dates for that. We were denied that from the previous parks and rec director. I met with the mayor and some others and was told that we will work on it and never heard back. He did give me a response that he was gonna make sure that we did nothing that would affect the rec league kids, which I appreciate that. But I think it's important to note, we have always partnered together with rec league and outside tournaments.

We've done it over the years on Jonesboro baseball boosters. We've done it at softball. We've done it at we have done it at volleyball and that's never seen been a problem. It's not a problem for other cities but last year, we were denied those dates for economic development for our city and hotels and restaurants. I'm not going to reiterate a lot of the things that Matt brought up but I mean, are some concerns that were raised, that were raised by me and some others last year and again, our position is not only the economic development of the sports prog programs programs for our city, but A and P has given City Star's organization over a $150,000 over the last five or six years.

So that's money that we gave them at their request to help fund youth programs for low to moderate incomes to kids that the city thought that the city. City Star's money was part of the city. We We did not find out till after that that it did not flow through there. You know, one question I raised a couple of times last year after the concerns were raised is why would legislative audit not review this? And I understand the response I got, what it was a five zero one c three, it was a separate organization from the city that we received.

But what I don't is you had city employees on city time using city facilities, using city trucks and vehicles, and the only thing that wasn't part of the city was the complexion of funds that was going through a portal for City Stars. I would think that that would be a red flag that would require legislative audit to come in and review that. I know we get reviewed from A and P on several different occasions. So I don't know who talked to legislative audit or what was told to them, but I would think that that would be an item that should have been looked at especially with the concerns. It would have been very easy to internally review this instead of having to get an outside audit or a further investigation.

I would also ask each of you to please go back and look at the finance meeting. I'm not gonna go through all the quotes, but go back and look through the finance meeting of, I think it was July, and review that because there are several key things in there that are all red flags from not much money was collected, not much money was involved, it's such a small program, all we were asked to review was the field usage fee. I mean, all of those things are concerning especially when you allow somebody to request their own audit after the accusations that were made to them. Lastly, and I'll finish it with this. Our community is made up of volunteers.

It's hard to find good volunteers that actually wanna serve in our community and be very active. It's hard. I mean, everybody's busy. Everybody's working. You know, through this process, I don't know how many volunteers we lost last year. It was eight to 10. I'm not sure how many were on that board. But they raised concerns over programming. They raised concerns over field usage, and then they raised concerns over financial irregularities. And nothing happened and they finally said, heck with it. We're gonna give up. There's no sense in fighting this and we don't wanna be a part of this if there's no transparency. So we lost volunteers there. It's very, very frustrating, Jean. It's frustrating.

I'll end it with this. I think the last city council meeting, the mayor's comments said, I have talked to several members of our parks advisory committee and I've no Jim has talked to most of them. If not, all of them as well as as to them about our youth sports programs. I don't know who talked to them or who communicated with them, but I've talked to several. I had several call meetings like obviously y'all obviously you have been talked to us like I haven't heard anything.

Most of them had not been talked to anybody before that city council meeting last the last city council meeting. If I'm wrong let me know. Let me know who you talked to because several of them said I have not they have not heard from anybody. And we're making decisions on programming going forward just like it nothing happened without any input from stakeholders. A and P has not been involved.

The facilities board hasn't been involved and it seems like most of the parks commission has not been involved. So, why would you go through and make start making decisions without the input from the stakeholders? You know, I will follow-up with what Matt Matt said and I appreciate what Chris mister Chris is doing on this is we need a separate commission that is focused on sports that has actual input and it also reports to the city council because obviously, the path that we have taken previously hasn't worked well for our city. So with that, I will answer any questions that you may have. Let me also say, the path we've gone through last year has not been easy but it does also show that there is significant upside to what we have available.

With the projections we have on the Rack Center, it also shows us that we have a significant potential at other facilities that Matt mentioned. But we've got to get it right and we've to get the programming right because all this revenue has to pay for this facility. If it doesn't, it's it's on all of us. It's on every one of us. I mean, Matt and I are volunteering.

I mean, we can walk away at any time. The reason we haven't and people have asked why why are you keeping doing this? There's times I don't know. But the main reason Matt and I talked about last year is we want to make sure that the Rack Center didn't fall under the same issues that Joe Mac has and that's why we're trying to keep it independent and keep community oriented and a volunteer organization controlling that and working on it and working on a partnership with the city on that. So, with that, any questions or any comments?

I got a question, Jerry. If I'm, thank you all for being here. You and Matt taking time and serving our community. So, I appreciate that greatly. One, I think the biggest thing and one of the questions I've been asking about is cashless. Will RAC be cashless or will that be a combination?

I don't know the answer to that.

I really believe there was a court ruling recently that said you can't be completely cashless. That if somebody tenders legal tender, have to accept it. Now you can be mostly opportunities, but I don't think you can declare completely cashless. Like I think ASU has been going through trying to re figure out what they're gonna do because they did go cashless inside the stadiums and they're trying to figure out how to do both. But you can go mostly cashless for sure.

I think there's definitely ways to put controls in place to make sure the cash is handled properly. I

think the other question to follow that up, have we started working on a cash handling policy in that we've got this group, this person's count or and number one, can we spell that out? Maybe bring that to us and give us an official, this is our procedure, this is our policy that we will follow each and every time. Because I remember going back and looking at the finance meeting that they referenced and it was three people counting the money, but it doesn't say who the three people are and their role in the city. So I think we do need to outline this is somebody from finance, this is somebody from, you know, different whatever, but at the same time we need to have policy around that. So I would love to see us bring that back maybe to finance and give us, Mr.

Chairman, what do we have available? I see this extra 1%. What do we have available to spend and have you used it, have you not?

It's a good question. We just finished the three year allocation we did for the soccer fields. So we have this fund can be used for a project going forward. Again, that is designated for a city requested project. The city brings it to A and P and we partner with them on funding that we could do, you know, one year, two year, three year program project for that.

I can tell you in our last year's planning meeting for A and P and one of my personal goals is as a community, as a city, we need to find a way to get the Shooting Sports Complex finished. We have got to get that done. It's going to take a final facility out there, the main facility. I think the estimates are 3 to $4,000,000. If we all pull together, we could find a way to get that done.

We need some leadership that's going to take that and roll with it. We've talked several times, still waiting on a solution. I think A and P could come up, could use this money over a three or five year period to help with that. 1,000,000, 1,000,005. I think A and P would have some additional money possibly after the sports complex gets finished to put towards that. I know the facilities board has expressed an interest in that. So if we all put our heads together, we could get that done. But that is a huge economic opportunity that we are wasting out there. It's it it is well ran. The individuals out there work really really hard.

We could host a lot of regional tournaments if we had the final building. We basically just we we built it and we have not completed it. It's like having a house without a front door on it. We we need to get that finished. So, that would be my recommendation. Obviously, trying to find partnerships for that. So anyway, that's that's where we're at there.

Last thing I'll say in regards to this, I know the racket is going to be somebody else will run that out the I can't remember name of the group.

Sports facilities.

Sports facilities group. They're going to run it day to day, tournaments, etcetera. I really feel like we need to look at moving our sports outside of the city and making it something that we have a separate entity. Their responsibility is our youth sports program. Now, there's some other cities that do it. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, maybe reach out to them and say, what are you doing? Help us make this happen. Number one, to make sure we don't have any things that have happened in the past. So, the no, that's my preference but we'd love to

see that happen as well. That's a. Thank you, councilor. Again, that's a huge option that could be done. There's several companies that do that programming. There's A lot of cities are going to that model because the advantage you get is those people, they know how to run a tournament and they can bring teams in for those tournaments. So I would think that's something we could definitely look at, get bids on it. If we don't like it, we keep doing what we're doing. And let me be clear, the current parks and rec department does an outstanding job. I don't want any of this to be a reflection on anything anybody has done in that department. They look great. They're mowed. Everything looks really, really good. So I think we've got to maybe really, really keep that in the back of our minds. And also, programming is just one part of the parks and rec.

Any questions? Other comments?

Thank you, Jerry. All right, next we'll move on to item number five and these are items on consent agenda.

Move to adopt unless changes are noted. Second.

Do have motion on the floor to adopt.

Actually, sorry. I do have an item to remove, mayor.

Okay. One one.

Uh-huh. That's gonna be resolution 26,004.

I'll amend my motion to reflect that.

Okay, we do have a motion on the floor without item zero zero four. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So we'll go to now resolution twenty six zero zero four.

The reason why I asked this item to be removed this evening is that lean has been satisfied. So I'll make a motion to table indefinitely. Second.

Do you have a motion and a second on the floor? Discussion? I don't see any. Anyone in the audience? I don't see any as well. If you would, please go ahead. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Now we'll move on to item number six. These are items on new business. These are ordinances on the first reading. First ordinance is twenty six zero zero one.

Move we suspend the rules and offer by title only. Second.

Do you have a motion on the floor? All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed?

An ordinance to amend chapter one seventeen article known as the zoning ordinance of the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas providing for a change in zoning boundaries from r one single family medium density district to c three general commercial district for property located at 2620 Alexander, Jonesboro, Arkansas as requested by Paula Thompson.

Any discussion by council? Questions? Anyone in council chambers? Anyone in council chambers? I don't see any. So that will move on to its next reading. Now council will move on to ordinance twenty six zero zero two.

I move we suspend the rules and offer by title only. Second.

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

In ordinance for the approval of a private club permit for Marnarka Monarkas. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Mexican Restaurant LLC. Sorry if I said that wrong.

Do we have any discussion by counsel? Anyone in counsel chambers? Yes, sir. You If would please come forward, state your name and address, mister Hans.

James Owen Hans, 508 Ridgecrest. Notice we have two of these. And by the way, what does application redacted mean? Does that mean there's information they don't want the public to have till they can get their permits?

Mister Hans, I'll answer that question for you.

What?

I'll answer that question for you.

Okay.

If they've listed a social security number on that, that has to be redacted.

Okay. Just just so. Okay. Folks, when is this going to stop? You know, the the citizens of Craiggate County have multiple times voted for this to be a dry county and there is no respect for that vote at all.

You know, it's it's how you vote but we run we run things. It's almost like a dictatorship. The votes of the people don't mean a thing. We need to put limits on this. There's lots of things and I want you all to know if you haven't looked up the law, because some people like to blame it on the Alcohol Control Board, but that control control board is only an that we And can

thing is

it.

And I

say, I I think there needs to be a number set of how many. And now I would recommend one for every 2,000 residents of the city. Of course, there is a matter that we have a lot more than that permits out there already. But we need we need to think about, you know, the citizens of the county vote this same draft. When are we going board.

To to

I'm going don't see anyone. That will move on to its next reading. Now we'll move on to ordinance twenty six zero zero three.

Move to suspend the rules and offer by title only.

We do have motion on

the floor.

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

In ordinance for the approval of a private club permit for walk ons sports bistro.

Any discussion by counsel? I don't see any. Anyone in counsel chambers? I don't see any as well. That'll move on to its next reading. Now we'll move on to items in unfinished business, item number seven. These are ordinances on the third reading. Now these ordinances will be voted on by council. So we'll start with ordinance twenty five zero four one.

An ordinance amending the membership of the stormwater management board.

Any discussion by council? Anyone in council chambers? I don't see any. If you would, please go ahead and cast your ballot.

I'm sorry, Carol. Didn't have a motion. I don't think we had a motion. You didn't

have a motion?

I'm sorry. I thought there was a motion.

I'll make a motion to adopt. I'll second.

Okay, we do now have a motion and a second. If you would please go ahead and cast your ballot. And that ordinance does carry. Now we'll move on to ordinance 20 five-forty five.

An ordinance to amend chapter one seventeen known as the zoning ordinance providing for changes in zoning boundaries from r one to p d r l u o for property located at Cordobella.

Move to adopt. Second.

We do have a motion on the floor. Any discussion by counsel? Anyone in counsel chambers? I don't see any. Counsel, if you would, please cast your ballot.

And that ordinance does carry. Now we'll move on to item number eight. This is the mayor's report. So good evening, everyone. And we're three weeks now to 2026. As expected, it's cold and the wintery participation I can't even say it now. It's in the forecast. I'm sure that Steve Tippett and his row crew are looking forward to that, but Ron Sturch and all of our emergency departments prepare. Let's be mindful of the safety of our families and neighbors too. The street department will be busy this week in preparing and what will remain in close contact with RDOT to be ready for mother nature.

Warming centers, are the community centers, will be open and jet services will operate as much as possible. The Salvation Army, again, is helping with overnight shelters and meals. Even though the doctor Martin Luther King Day Parade held yesterday was chilly, it didn't stop the enthusiasm. The drunk corps and steppers performed, brought the energy, and it was great to see the size of the crowd to celebrate an important work of such an iconic and leader in our history, and the trolleys took part in the parade as well. I had the honor of being one of the speakers at the ceremony which followed at the ASU Alumni Center, joining leaders of various organizations working together to bring our community together.

Lots of exciting plans now are going on at our airport. I attended the airport commission meeting last week, and along with new construction, which is totally visible, the improvements are being made. There's genuine interest. We had outside interest in multiple groups, for commercial jet service, which is now leading us in a new direction. And the commission will decide at what point in time in the years to come that we'll be providing that opportunity for our residents.

So these improvements are leading us in that direction. So it brings me at this point to additional safety features for travel at the ground level. I wanna say thanks to RDOT. You'll be seeing safety features added on Johnson And Caraway. We're out now right now, the Hawk Light on Johnson gets about a 100 pushes a day.

RDOT will soon be adding another hawk light. Now, counsel, this is on top of the one that we're gonna have out by Parker Park, the one on Johnson. They're adding an additional hawk light on Johnson at their expense because they've seen it pay off with relevance. They will also add a rapid flashing beacon near textbook brokers as well. And then at Caraway and Johnson, they're gonna be making some combined traffic features enhancement for the safety crossings of those pedestrians.

We continue our efforts to improve both vehicle and pedestrian safety. Speaking of plans, be on the lookout for some public input meetings on our master growth plan. Now as we move forward with that master growth plan, we're looking for anywhere from what, Daryl, about 10 to 15 local meetings. Majority of them are going to be hopefully in church facilities. We want the input of the community that honestly we want to engage community members that don't engage themselves on a normal basis on our master growth plan.

This is really key for the future development of Jonesboro, so we'll be providing that. Speaking of growing, I'd like to make an introduction. Jim, if you would please come forward. I think everybody is well aware, and if you haven't met Mr. Stearns, I would garner for you to do so. He's a talented individual, and I'm very pleased that he has accepted the position as the new director of parks. And I'd like to give him a minute to discuss some of the plans and visions for the future of our parks. Jim?

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that. Nice to see everybody tonight. I'm excited about this challenge in front of me. Really am. Really look forward to working with various community groups and individuals that are concerned about youth sports and how we run those youth sports programs. Our goal is to be more accountable, more transparent, and continue to improve we're

be

to We're league pickleball, and miracle league basketball coming up. We're We're really excited about that. My team rallied together and pulled together off the icebreaker j o volleyball tournament this past weekend. Just real quick, we're looking really forward to the ridge. Can't wait to have one solid place for conducting large tournaments.

We were at 15 different gyms on 22 courts. We had nine concession stands, had 86 teams this weekend. We had 21 teams that were within 10 miles of Jonesboro. We had 65 teams that were within 25 miles of Jonesboro. We had 10 teams that traveled over a 150 miles.

Our farthest was, Cornerstone Volleyball Club, a 175 miles away from Alkerm, Mississippi. They brought two teams to Jonesboro for the tournament. We had a total of, well, nearly 2,000 spectators, adults. We had 1,955, 270 youth spectators, and had a great weekend. We had we had a really, really good weekend in parks.

Parks team pulled together and pulled this off. We had a lot of interaction with people. We talked about the Ridge and we talked about the future, hoping that maybe this was the opening event of next year's Ridge grand opening with the number of courts and consolidate facilities. We think it'll just be even a bigger tournament potentially for us. Really like to say that we welcome input from all community groups to help us moving forward. We're just trying to make things work for the city. We're trying to improve youth sports and youth sports opportunities and continue to work forward towards that motion. So yeah, I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to work with each and every one of you guys.

Thank you very much. So many of you know that some of our directors and staff as well went to the Arkansas Municipal League Winter Conference in Little Rock last week. It's always interesting to hear about other community's challenges and solutions as well the level of topics that impact us, and I'll admit that the awards lunch in Jonesboro name was called out numerous times, and it's it's always wonderful to see among your peers, but I believe we won awards because of the community's engagement. You've heard us mention that volunteer community the year, and that's who we are. We're volunteers, and it's been said here many times this evening.

That's what sets Jonesboro apart. That's who we are, and that's who we'll continue to be. So we have wonderful plans for the vision and the future. I would like to go ahead as well and for community members, we are looking for volunteers on many of our committees, so please access our city website, find a committee that you would like to engage yourself with, and please put in your application to participate. That's the end of my reports. Next we'll move on to item number nine, city council reports.

Mr. Street?

I was glad to hear Mr. Morgan's offer for a and p to work with the city to finish the Shooting Sports Complex. I hope there's a way that we can get together with them and finish the investment we have out there to maximize the economic opportunities that'll bring to the city. It's a great facility and all we need is that building and I think that would reap great economic benefits for us. I mean, I think we really see them. So, hopefully, we can get on board with that and get that done. That's all I have there.

Mr. Miller?

Nothing at this time.

Mr. Bryant?

Oh, boy. I don't know what's on Kevin's mind, but tonight reminds me a little bit when I saw real estate full time. I was showing a house, and I got bit by a dog. And the person that I was representing that I was gonna make money off of acted like it didn't happen. I mean, it was unbelievable. The guy never said a word about his dog biting me. We had a shark bite tonight, and the mayor read from a script like a robot talking about the weather. So the folks that are concerned about stuff, the mayor's not gonna do a thing about it. So it's gonna be up to this council for us to make change and this I mean, the FBI has been in city offices and we're sitting here acting like everything's just going great. So it's time for us to get serious.

Mister Haffner?

I think it's always good to have input and I think we have plenty of opportunities for improvement. Thank you.

Mr. McClain?

I think one of the things that was brought up tonight, as Matt said, was tough. A concern, I don't know if we have a concern of mine is that we saw minutes that were altered. Just curious if somebody can give me some clarity on why something was removed.

I will allow you a response to that. There is an ongoing investigation and that will exonerate our office.

I agree. It will. I mean, don't know how much we can talk about the FBI investigation but they've investigated that and they found no wrongdoing on that.

To remove to alter the minutes?

It wasn't altered. The minutes weren't altered. I think what happened is a phone rang. I believe it was the time that my phone unfortunately went off during the meeting of all the great timing. And I think that that disrupted when when the minutes were being typed. And yeah, we've all answered questions about that and they found no wrongdoing on the part of the city clerk's office on the minutes. And that's who is 100% in charge of the minutes. I don't have any say so on the minutes nor does anyone else.

The

only thing that I've got Madam Clerk is I think and I mentioned this at our last meeting of

Board

Directors

that. To align.

We're Mr. We're Moore?

No ma'am.

Doctor. Coleman? No. Mr. Emerson?

I'd say I appreciate all the comments tonight and as we move forward in talking about about anything in regards to any cash controls or anything else that after having fifteen years of retail banking, if there's any commissions or anything that I can help serve on to improve any cash controls or any motion forward, I'll be happy to serve on those.

Porter? The council's first meeting in March falls on election day and I will be working all day as an election official and bring this up in case it would affect anyone else on the council or members of the public.

Alright. Next we'll move on to the next order of business. It's public comment. Anyone can come forward, discuss anything that was not discussed earlier at public comments. Yes, state your name and address, and you have five minutes total.

Daniel Gary, 668 County Road 763. For twelve years, I've coached here in town for thousands of hours and coaching hundreds of our youth. One of the volunteers was on the board that Matt mentioned because I believed our kids needed a good place, a place to grow that's built on honesty and integrity, not deception, not lies. But while those of us on the board were operating in good faith, leadership at city hall was allowing a culture of deception. Core of the issue is simple, Parks and Recreation director lied to volunteer and parents about our finances for years.

It wasn't a secret for over a year. The board reported this to the mayor. He sent warning after warning to the mayor's office about serious financial red flags. You've you've got the documents now. Instead of stepping in to protect the families, the kids, mayor gave empty promises he'd fix it.

Never did. It's hard to ignore this period of stalling and ignoring it and hoping it went away occurred right in the middle of his reelection campaign. Feels like accountability was sidelined for political convenience, leaving volunteers to be misled and families to stay in the dark. After months of hitting a wall of silence and excuses, our entire board felt we had no option but to resign. After the resignation, the mayor met with me in my office, looked me in the eye and promised that we were gonna find a path forward.

He promised me three things. One of those is gonna be getting revolution financially independent. One of those is gonna be figuring out a way to help fund it. The other one was he's gonna offer an apology to our board president for the repeated disrespect and dishonesty he showed. And to my knowledge, that apology has never been offered, and that's a shame.

City deserves better. What I saw with Danny was not poor communication, it was deliberate cover up. When we discovered that the missing budget item for field usage, I asked Danny for a CityStar's board roster so I could understand what was going on. Danny gave me a list of private citizens who I then followed up with. I called them, they didn't have a clue what he was talking what I was asking about.

I followed up with Danny, sent him an email. He gave me a new list, all Parks and Rec employees that reported directly to him. What an oversight? Mayor's office was fully aware of every bit of this and failed to do a single thing about it. It's been eighteen months since he received his first contact, and the mayor only made a single visible action once the FBI raided Danny Kapalas' home and his office.

Even then, the goal wasn't transparency. It was a power grab to take control of our youth sports program. Programming. Letting the same leadership that turned a blind eye to years of financial deception now dictate the future of youth sports at Jonesboro is a mistake. It tells the public nothing's changed.

I understand the instinct to wait for outcome of an f FBI investigation, but criminal investigations determine guilt. They don't determine whether this city's leadership has met its ethical obligations. Moral failures of the mayor and his administration are already documented and they require action now. Let's be clear about the stakes. Mayor didn't just fail to protect youth sports, he failed to act when warned, allowed deception to continue, and in doing so, exposed this city to scrutiny through an FBI investigation, all while prioritizing political expediency over accountability.

If the council does not intervene now, the message is that protecting political power matters more than protecting our kids. I'm asking you to draw a firm line here and say that Jonesboro is not willing to accept that. You have an ethical and professional responsibility to step in, slow this down, and take ownership of what happens next. Youth sports should not be consolidated under an administration that prioritizes politics over the truth. This transition needs independent oversight and public accountability led by this council with representation from the A and P Commission and the Public Facilities Board.

Let's empower advisory council that Matt and Jerry mentioned to make educated decisions about our kids, make sure they're taken care of. Our kids deserve a system they can trust, and I'm asking you to be the leaders our city and our kids need that is missing missing from City Hall. Thank you.

Anyone else in the audience? Yes, ma'am. If you would, please come forward, state your name and address.

Yes, sir. Jolene Mullet. I live at 2004 West Nettleton. I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about the Black History Museum at the Eboon Watson Center. As you guys know, the Eboon Watson Center is a culture is a cultural center for which there are few in Northeast Arkansas.

My understanding is that when the building was chosen to house the warrants division that it was supposed to be, a short term solution. Currently, the community room is not able to be accessed for birthday parties, baby showers, family reunions for the community that it should be serving. And I understand that there are issues beyond the city's control, things like insurance matters and the like, and that the city is making an effort to navigate the situation. With this in mind, I'm just wondering what is the timeline for the center to be back in use for the community?

Got your name and address, and we'll get right with you.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Anyone else in the audience? Please state your name and address, and you cannot speak on anything that's been spoken about earlier.

Jeremy Terrell, 909 Pinecrest. I'm gonna try to be I don't think I'll be as nice as Jerry or Matt, but here's the truth. The truth is is I got up here in April. I did the math. I mathed. I did the math, and very few people took that math as math. It's incredibly frustrating. And the math that I did was only on soccer. It didn't include the other sports. And then I got asked, you know, by Carol to to provide names to those that have been given cash.

It's incredibly frustrating because, you know, Carol, no no I I don't know you, so I don't this is not you you're in the public eye, but you asking me to give you something instead of you going out and finding those names and asking around, that that's incredibly frustrating to me. The you know, your your job is to make sure that that we're acting as legal as possible. And, you know, with all due respect, I didn't have any confidence that if I gave you the names, anything would happen. And that's not a reflection on you. It's just a reflection on the the the the the city administration as a whole.

And at some point in time, we gotta start listening to the people of Jonesboro. At some point in time, we gotta quit talking about how awesome we are and how awesome we're gonna go and what we're gonna do and look at all of the stuff that we've done and really do these things. That that that's that's important thing that we have to do. We have to move forward. And we have to do it in a way that protects kids, that protects the taxpayers, that that represents the kids and the taxpayers and the future of Jonesboro.

And the problem is, you know, there's a lot of things going on that that doesn't do that. And it's a and it's a total reflection of of the leadership of of our town. You know, case in point, the Eboom Watson Center. I know that that they were told that they would be opened up very quickly, and that was told to them the December 1. And, you know, here it's June, and now they still don't even have an answer. And, you know, I don't know why we can't answer the young lady's comments right now. Just tell us. Or tell us what's going on so that we know. Tell us that we're looking for some property. Tell us that we're, you know, we're looking to lease something.

Something. Transparency is everything. But to keep pushing things down the road and just saying, we'll get back to you when we've heard that getting back to us isn't a real thing. Unfortunately. You know, we we we had an incident downtown where 50 people around 50 people were in a fight. It was atrocious. Those of you that have seen it, those of you that know about it, it's absolutely atrocious. Did anybody from the town get up and and say anything? Did anybody get up and say this kind of stuff will not happen in Jonesboro, Arkansas? No.

Nothing was said. It was atrocious. People almost lost their life, and our leadership didn't say anything. And we act like, you know, what? Like, it wasn't a big deal? I can tell you, if if some of the national news would've got a hold of this and and and actually see footage from like the apartment and stuff, it would have been unbelievable and yet we say nothing. You know, at some point in time, you guys know I'm I'm I'm critical. And man, I do. I try to be solutional too. And it's tough.

But you guys are the oversight. You guys are. And it's important that you you hold our elected officials accountable. If they're not doing their jobs, we would love to hear it during these meetings, and we would love the demand that we do better. We can no longer just sit by and act like things aren't happening. I called something a baby audit, and, man, you'd have thought I shot somebody. It was. Now we know. Now we find out it was a baby audit. And we asked the person that is now in investigation by the FBI to to pick somebody to do the audit.

Like, that's crazy time. That that's not transparency. That's not us doing our job want to to get to the root and cause of things. You know, Mary, if you said to Matt Motylewski numerous times that he's he's probably paying himself.

Cindy, your comments.

That

that is that's comments are over.

So Thank you.

I appreciate you

guys to do better. And to heed a little bit more about what's been going on and hold people accountable. Thank you.

Alright. Anyone else in the audience? Sir, if you would please get a a

of of And And do

to

able than they normally would be because of that. This, And trying to keep us safe and well, the police department, that's that's a given. You know that they're gonna be working extra hours because of it. And not only the police police department but the sheriff's office and and some other police departments. Unfortunately, if something does happen, you you might be having the fire department and ambulance drivers and tow trucks and these kind of emergency workers out.

First, let me in advance say for myself, thank you to the people that are gonna be putting in this extra time. Keep trying to keep us safe from this and and any other snowstorms we we have this winter. And I'm going to and some people may not think this is appropriate, but I want anybody who is in hearing range of me whether it's in in this council chamber. First thing we need, all of us can do is we can pray for these people that that it'll be easy for them and and that they will stay safe and if there's something that we can think of that can make their jobs easier on them as they do it, then then let's do it.

Anyone else? That was the end of the comments. Alright. We'll move on to the next time. That's adjourned. So

moved. Second.

Do you have a motion all in favor? Say aye. Aye. Any opposed?