On this August 12th of the year 2025.

Keep in mind these meetings are being televised live for our residents who cannot attend with us in person.

So that uh with that we will go directly to the first item on the agenda.

Mr.

Mayor.

Uh before we get to the agenda, if I may.

Uh so looking at the pending list for next week, um the city clerk brought this to my attention.

Uh under executive session, we have a performance evaluation for the acting city administrator that we denoted at the June third meeting and we said uh stated an intent to conduct.

I guess she was wanting uh uh we need to formally place that uh on the agenda.

I guess that was uh informally placed, so if there's two of us who wish to see that happen uh at next week's meeting, uh the two of us need to uh denote that so that it can be formally placed.

Okay, move on someone else.

We need at least two.

We got it.

Okay, thank you.

Is that sufficient?

Thanks.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you, Director Rigo.

Okay.

Item number one.

Thank you, Mayor.

Tonight's first topic is the discussion of city owned properties that can potentially be sold.

The communications team.

Thanks, Josh.

Has put together this booklet that I've distributed to your uh places this evening.

Uh summarizing the details of eighteen properties that were identified from the June tenth study session discussion as property for which the city has no current plans or use.

That that is a good question.

And others that we have uh uh done this with have been in in proximity to um churches.

They've they've bought them for use as parking lots and such.

Uh but if you know if this if a structure goes back on there, if it's not built up or some somehow uh um mitigated for the flooding concerns, then the any structure would likely be would likely flood as well.

And so we don't want to create a problem that we have have removed.

And so uh that's that's the reason for for doing that.

Uh I mean the open space, green space, additional, I mean additional space to the adjacent property owners might be might make it attractive.

Um, but other than that, this the city doesn't have a uh have an unintended use for the end.

Okay.

And then on page six, I guess in the orange category, um the less than an acre plot there with the um Maolo church structure.

Um, you know, I think that's an important uh historic structure on the north side of town, uh, and I wouldn't uh personally be in favor of having that one uh be for sale.

Understood.

Thank you.

Uh Director Settle.

Thank you.

Back to Jared's point on the red properties.

All three are grouped together.

There's the three properties.

Um, other places have uh mitigated flood control by putting the property on stilts.

You know, it sounds crazy, but if you go into the ocean areas, they're they're up above and they park underneath.

Would that be something that could be viable in this area?

It possibly could, but still we would we would want to do something with the potenti any potential buyer uh concerning their intended use for doing something like that.

We would want to specifically recognize that requirement and probably make some uh considerations that you know these properties were purchased for the for uh mitigating flood damage.

We want to likely would want to include some uh protective language in that transaction.

Uh in the green area, I got two comments.

Uh the Texas Road, I would like you to talk to the school district.

Calvinall is a very busy school and parking is a premium in that area.

And so maybe this would be a great opportunity to work with Calvinal School and the school system to see if this probably would work for them for parking uh in that area, because uh the schools are next to it, and I think they would alleviate some parking concerns they have there.

The last one is 1801 74th Street.

I think that was deeded to us by Methodist Village.

I think we should deed it back to them and then be out of that building completely.

Thank you, Director Settle.

Uh Director Christian Savage.

So in the agenda packet for the 7700 Texas Road, it said recommended deed to adjacent landowner.

And in this packet it says recommended for sale.

Yeah, there were there was a there was a error in the one that was included in the packet that's been updated for this summary in this and this booklet.

The problem I would have with deeding anything to an adjacent landowner is in the past we have uh forced adjacent landowners to to buy things to put in bids.

So, like for example, on garrison that um is less than 10,000 square feet remnant parcel.

Um this next to the state parking lot.

I think it has 17 parking spaces.

I think they paid like 150,000 for that.

Um there were multiple bids on it.

You know, we didn't just deed that to anybody.

So I don't think that that needs to be our policy going forward if we've asked people to put in bids and pay for things even if even if they're the only ones it is useful to that's something I think I would have a problem with.

So I just wanted to put that out there that I don't know that we necessarily need to be deeding anything to anybody, they can put in a bid.

No, I I agree.

And there is a there is a um process in our municipal code that we have to follow, and that's the one you referenced that we used earlier that we we still would go through that process to notify adjacent property owners and property owners in the vicinity of the our intent to sell a piece of property.

So also for um the flood buyout properties, with the Edinburgh Drive, that's not really in a floodplain.

You know, I remember when when that happened, it was a a drainage ditch that was full, wasn't it?

That had some debris in it that caused the flooding.

Well, the drainage ditch behind those properties, not just that it was full, but it was undersized to sort to carry the water that flows through there.

So it did end up backing up into the yards and in the homes.

So um if we were to sell those, could we remove the deed restriction if we were to right size that drainage behind it?

Would that be more cost effective?

Well, could we get more out of those properties?

The reason for purchasing the homes in the first place that it was more it was more cost effective to purchase the homes than to make the improvement to the ditch.

So it was more cost effective to buy three houses than it was to improve the improve that storm system, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Director Neil Martin and then directed George Gassav.

Yes, so how do we go about selling these things?

We've got this document that is glossy.

Like I say, we have we have a uh I mean if the if the board agrees to all of them, I know there's been some exceptions to some of them, uh but we can proceed with the our um codified process for notifying uh the public that these properties are for sale and inviting uh bids uh for them.

I don't we don't have provision for just in our code for uh just uh listing them like a listing of a potential uh potential property with an aid with a real estate company, for instance, uh to market it for sale, but I think once we go through the statutory process, if we get um if we don't get uh acceptable suitable bids for those, then I think we can go through that process after that.

Okay.

Um and uh I know some of these uh some of these properties were purchased with general fund dollars.

Some of them were purchased via the uh the either federal grant dollars or um our residence buyout program.

So if we sell it, let's say we sell the Mazard Road property, that's all general fund dollars, right?

Yes.

Okay.

So if if but if we sell the Nedenburg property, which is either grant dollars or streets.

That would go back.

That would go back to that.

Okay.

Go back to that.

Okay.

I mean, I think the the importance for for me was to get money back in the general fund as as quickly as possible.

Uh as quickly as possible, but not I'm I don't want to give away the property.

Sure.

Um that Mazar property is uh uh one with uh high value.

So you know I would want to make sure that we're we're getting fair market value for it.

If you know if not more.

And um get that back in the general fund as quickly as we can to ease some of those pressures on the general fund that we've talked about as a group.

Okay, Director George Kasavits.

Yep.

Who actually from the city is going to do the negotiation for the property?

Um, like likely it would be administration or the city attorney.

Do you think it would be better just to turn this over to a real turn when I'm settled or it possibly, yes.

I mean, I think we have to go through our codified process.

If we don't get a suitable result from that, then I think yes, we would list what the real estate agent.

And who's gonna who who's the who's gonna appra appraise the property?

You're gonna have to have an appraisal so we know it.

Many of them we have well, some of them we have appraisals on already.

Um of them we've owned for a long time and don't have a current appraisal.

Yeah.

Director Suddha, why was the boast property deeded to the city?

In in 1966, and this was all in the around Memorial Day in 1966, the Methodist Village donated that parcel to the city in the last week of May, and then a week later, the city deeded that property to boast for the intended use as a s as a school.

Um then that was it was vacant property at the time.

Both took took uh ownership of that property and built their buildings on there and were there for 58 years until last year when they ceased operations there, uh, which enacted the reversion clause that was in that deed to so that it reverted to the ownership of the city.

Okay.

Right, thank you.

Director Kemp?

Thank you, Mayor.

I have a few items just listening to us tonight.

Um my goals for this were to decrease the maintenance cost, things that we're having to take care of mowing-wise for the city and replenish our funds as you all shared as well.

Uh a few items here, I guess.

One is uh can administration further explain when we talk about on this property uh on page uh page three for 74th Street, and we recommend deeding to adjacent landowner, but we're saying we're going to make them bid on said property to be have that deeded back to them?

Could you tell us the boast building?

I mean, when we're deeding something back, but we're going to still ask them to buy it, is that what I'm hearing?

Well, not necessarily.

I mean, in this this one, I mean the adjacent property owner is Methodist Village, the the entity that originally donated it to the city in 1966.

So that's why that's listed that way.

But it's like say, are you saying that if Mercy Hospital wanted to buy that shot, are we allowing people to bid on it or are we deeding it back to the original landowner?

That would be the the decision for the board to make.

If our intent was to get it to Methodist Village to do their project on, then we would take steps to make sure that we could do that.

Yeah, because I just don't understand I felt like I heard that they're gonna have to bid to get it back.

If if we go through our regular process where we deem a piece of property excess for sale, then we have a process we have to go through, and then that would require uh property owners to make bids on the property so we have for sale.

I just think we've got to be clear here.

I mean, if we're deeding it back, then I that sounds to me like we're giving it back because it was given to us.

I th I think the question there is do we do we do that transaction for a nominal fee?

I mean uh you know, okay, I see.

Okay.

The other one is uh on the Edinburgh uh properties, just from the residents that I've heard as well around that Edinburgh area, and one backyard that I even witnessed myself, uh I don't I think we do need to consider that drainage for what it's worth being considered to be resized.

There are other residents that have communicated with me about flooding in their backyard.

So I don't I don't think we're we may need to address our drainage there.

I just want to make that on note.

And then the second thing would be uh, you know, I'm all for selling it, but I am kind of thinking we have to think about that value because when I've driven by that, you have one house kind of on the corner and then there'd just be this, I guess really large side yard, because I can't imagine who's else is going to buy it to be able to do nothing besides either this neighbor or the other neighbor on the far side of it.

But if you were to improve it and benefit other residents who are dealing with water issues in this area, then you may also be able to do something with these lots and put a home back on it, uh, even if it was on a stilt, as Director Settles mentioned.

And then I agree with staff on page six for 800 North Ninth Street.

Um the only reason I recommend selling would be that there have been some homes over there and some revitalization on some of these streets, and perhaps if we were to put a restriction on that historic structure, but if there was a builder that could do something unique around that structure, but still retaining it.

I mean, I think the game the game of this for me is less things to deal with.

And the more we maintain it, then the we're always going to be on the hook to maintain it.

And also I think it could bring good value if there was a builder that wanted to work with it.

That's just my thoughts.

But at least obviously put the restriction.

I do every time I've driven by this, I think it's beautiful.

So if it's that's not possible, then I guess you could retain it.

But if there was a way to bring a developer around it, that might be a way of memorializing it in a good appropriate fashion.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Director Rigo.

Thanks, Mayor.

So I just want to tease this uh process out a little bit more, Jeff.

So you know.

Say we decide, hey, let's take a run at selling all these things.

I'm personally speculative about the market that's going to be there for the things in the orange and in the red, but you know, hey, sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong.

So then that would trigger some sort of vote we would take to list items for sale or to engage a process that would get fresh appraisals on things that you know have not been appraised within, you know, a reasonably recent time.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And so then w uh how long, I mean, you know, like look on page seven, you know, the less uh division in North T Street, you know, the less than one acre triangle zone C5 not able to develop.

You know, is there when you put something for sale, uh is there a sense or have you reflected upon how long you wish to leave something for sale?

What what's the I mean is it just sort of for sale forever?

I mean, are they is there gonna be a marketing or effort made to you know highlight to people, hey these parcels across the community are for sale, please call you know 1800 Fort Smith and and talk to us about this.

Or is this just kind of a passive, you know, hey, if people call, they call, and if they don't, they don't.

What's kind of the thoughts that you've had?

I think that and regardless of how many or whatever the mixes of ones we decide to move ahead with, uh, yes, we get a we get a either have a recent appraisal or we get or we get an appraisal.

And then we offer those to the public for sale.

We do a public the public notification, uh which goes in newspaper and and those sorts of things.

We do the uh adjacent property owners notification and we go through that process to invite bids for those properties.

If we get bids and um I mean we can either, you know, this the board could either choose to accept a bid or we could reject them because uh you know that we don't get enough bids to the base the appraisal.

Okay.

Thank you.

Or I would sorry one last thing I would say is if we eventually if we would eventually get to a point where we would have to enlist real estate services on some of these properties, I think it would be wise where we would have to then consider what's that cost balance of okay what's what's the maintenance cost on some of these very very small parcels versus the costs we would pay um to have them go through the real estate process.

Yes.

Okay thank you.

Director Christina You know when we were first talking about this I was imagining um some higher value properties.

I know we talked about breaking off the frontage along Old Greenwood Road and I'm not seeing that anywhere in here is there any process that that's going through right now?

That is still going through its master planning process.

We haven't identified what the how deep or big those lots would be but I think that still is in the future if we identify those or to either be sold or leased by the city.

The Mazard Road property the 4401 Mazard Road could we get an updated appraisal for that I mean I know we've only had it about a year but I thought the appraisal had come in a little low initially I'm aware that we have one I don't remember the how old it is but we can see because I think it was for about $9000.

That's correct.

I think that property is probably worth more than that.

Also I just wanted to clarify my comment my comments um about not deeding things that was limited to the remnant properties Methodist village was not intended in my comments I think that's something we'd have to have a bigger discussion about I think that's we're treating that a little bit different since they had initially deeded it as agree.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other comment from the board I would urge you to consider the Methodist village property of deeding it back to them.

I think they have some amazing plans for the property if they can acquire it in a good reasonable way.

So anything else okay thank you.

We will go to item number two.

Thank you Mayor I um this item is a discussion requested by the board regarding the concept of a 360 degree review of all city Fort Smith departments.

I'm not familiar with an evaluation tool for an entire department uh but I focused on the staff memorandum on uh professional development tool for individuals such as department heads and with that I'll turn this to the uh to the board for further discussion.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Director Kemp you recognized thank you mayor.

I went ahead and gave this to Josh earlier to throw up on the screen and then prepared this a printout for the directors to look at this is since I brought this up I just thought I would throw this out as a discussion piece.

Obviously we can go any direction we wanted but instead of thinking of a paid service for a 360 review which there are definite good paid services you could do this the limited number of department heads we have because I'm thinking of C administrator, deputy administrator and department heads we could use Google forms and then taking the same format, going through it with a section one, identifying who we're talking about, then going through core behaviors, leadership expectations and they would pick a rating from one to five, goal-oriented feedback with open-ended questions, and then a self-assessment section.

For me, what this was in case you know we I know we all have heard this term, but I think it's important that we the department head leaders send a survey to every employee underneath them in the first quarter of the year they're given a written evaluation from their department leader in the in January, February, March.

What I'm proposing is in that target range of June somewhere in the year after that period we allow an opportunity for those department head leaders to receive a 360 review.

And I'm thinking of leadership that's below them giving feedback leadership that's beside them, other department heads a sampling giving feedback and then from the city administrator and then allowing the city directors to receive an email or a public presentation.

I'm open to either of the feedback that we've gathered from these 360 reviews.

If we one thing that was of concern for me coming in, because I came in during a transition of the city administrator, is I've had department people speak with me and voice maybe a concern that they had, but at the time they didn't really voice.

I would like this to be a great space to improve what we're doing as a team and as a city of Fort Smith, and through this process allow a culture of reflection and tune-up as we have an opportunity, and those tweaks take you to the peaks, so to speak.

So this is just a rough shot of an idea.

It would cost taxpayers zero dollars, could be administered by the human resource department.

And I want to clarify, I'm not talking about the entire staff being analyzed in this way.

The department heads in the city administration would be done this way.

And this is a process that could map out how that could be done.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Any discussions on uh the idea proposed by Director Kemp.

Okay.

Okay.

Director Newmark.

I would be I would be open to that, you know, being able to see some of that feedback.

Um I think would be helpful for for the board and inform us in uh maybe ways that we may not see.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Any other discussion on this uh particular item?

Okay.

Seeing none, we will go directly to number three.

Item three this evening.

Um the police department has been exploring the use of a lease program for its vehicle fleet as budget preparation season is coming upon us.

Uh Chief Baker has asked for this opportunity to address this topic with the board.

Uh the city last discussed a leasing program for city vehicles in 2017.

We have uh presentation ready for you this evening.

Good evening, Mayor Board, City Administrator.

I appreciate you uh giving us this opportunity.

No, it's kind of uh shoved in here last minute, uh and we've got a special meeting afterwards, so I'm gonna try to to be brief, but it was uh important for us to get this in front of you ASAP as we're in the middle of the 2026 budget process, and I really think there's an opportunity here for us to make some good changes in the way that we manage our uh capital expenses and specifically our vehicle expenses within the police department.

I believe this uh fleet leasing program is gonna permanently, if you allow us to do it, put an end to our constant vehicle woes.

We're proposing the way that we're gonna propose to finance it uh will have little to no increase um impact on the general fund budget.

In fact, after the first few years, I think we'll begin to see a decrease in the amount of money required to keep the police department with a fully functioning police vehicle fleet, and hopefully if we move forward with this, we might consider bringing other departments on as well.

Uh uh, I'm uh going to give uh these gentlemen opportunity who who've been working uh real closely together to put this um plan together an opportunity to give you a presentation.

But every time uh one of you have asked uh how we're doing on vehicles, I've I've been honest with you, I've told you that we were making do and that we're always conscientious of the needs of the rest of the city and the other city departments, but that I would let you know uh when that wasn't the case anymore and we need to do something differently, and I think we're to that point.

Um rather than just bring a problem to you, I'm bringing a solution.

So here's some things I'd like for you to consider uh as we jump into this conversation.

As of today, we have four vehicles with yearly maintenance costs that exceed the value of those vehicles.

Two have cost us more than twenty-five thousand dollars each to date in maintenance expenses.

We have eight vehicles currently in patrol service with over a hundred and twenty thousand miles, and if you factor in the idle time, that it's about four hundred thousand operating miles that doesn't show up on the obdometer.

Uh we have more than a dozen vehicles in the fleet that are over fifteen years old, approximately thirty that are over ten years old, and one that's been in service for twenty-eight years.

We spent almost six hundred thousand dollars last year alone to replace eight patrol vehicles.

And the plan that we're going to present to you tonight will replace sixty in the first year.

This program will also create a definitive path for us to expend our fleet that will allow us to fully realize our take-home vehicle program with no additional impact to the overall budget.

And as I've explained in the past, giving officers uh their own take-home vehicle, it has many benefits to it.

Uh one being that the fleet will be dispersed over a much larger area, so we'll uh have minimal damage from things like storm-related issues and and trying to find places to park the cars when we have a uh undercover when we have a storm come through won't be as big of an issue.

Uh it's greatly going to improve officer morale and officer retention.

One of the most common complaints that I hear from our officers, and I met with every single one of them face-to-face one on one in the first three or four months of the year.

Uh one of the common complaints was not having enough decent vehicles to patrol in, and that's because that we're having to hot seek them uh from one ship to the next.

We actually recently lost a very good police officer to a smaller agency.

And when I did the exit interview with him, one of the things that he cited as his reason for leaving is that the agency was able to provide and guarantee him his own his own vehicle, his own take-home vehicle.

And I'm sure that there's others who have left or are considering leaving for other agencies that either pay more or potentially pay less, and this being one of the reasons that that they would cite for leaving.

The amount of money that we invest in hiring and training this officer alone, and we'll have to invest in hiring and training his replacement, uh, would have paid for half of the year one expenses for this program that we're proposing.

So we know that officers who assigned their own vehicles, they just take better care of them, and that increases their resale value, which will come into play with this leasing program.

Uh this is also going to put uh more highly visible marked units out into our community.

Well, this program and its well-timed replacement schedule, which we will stay on top of.

We just hired a uh highly qualified fleet manager uh from one of our local dealerships, car dealerships actually, uh, to manage to help us manage this.

Uh we're going to be able to modernize our fleet with a continual supply of newer, safer vehicles, thereby reducing the total cost of operation by lowering fuel costs, lowering maintenance costs, and reducing emissions.

When combined with extended warranties, our yearly costs will become much more predictable and easier to budget for.

As I said, I believe this fleet leasing program is financially sound.

It's a responsible use of taxpayer dollars, allowing us to accomplish those things that are expected of us and provides a long-term solution to our age-old problem of maintaining a police vehicle fleet.

So I said I would keep this brief, and I would like to yield my time and introduce you to Mr.

John Holland with Enterprise Fleet Leasing, along with Deputy Director Dan Dennis, my administrative uh director, who has also been working with Mr.

Holland on this program.

Okay, yes, sir.

You recognize, go ahead.

Um, first I'd like to thank y'all for the opportunity to come to the study session.

Um I've been with Enterprise for 17 years, uh, a little over 16, it's almost 17.

Um, and it implemented this program with multiple uh municipalities, cities, uh colleges, universities.

Uh when I started our fleet management division in Oklahoma and Arkansas in 2008, 2009, Arkansas obviously was a little further away from Oklahoma City, so traveling over uh made it more difficult to do that.

I actually moved about an hour away from here on Lake U Fall not too long ago.

So my key area that I focus on now is is Arkansas.

Um, so much so that they tagged my vehicle, Arkansas.

So I guess that's just to help me not um get pulled over as much.

But we'll go ahead and start through our at all.

That would be better way to put that.

Just some of the references that we have for um cities that have done this program, have done it for a while.

Uh City of Little Rock uh is probably our largest one, obviously, uh, with over 150 vehicles.

They're doing not only their PD fleet but their white fleet as well.

City of Bryant does a lot of vehicles with us.

A couple of the cities that we're partnered with have done uh more of a PD-only fleet, um which is what you guys have we're looking at at this point.

Um the difference, the key difference that I can say based on those uh other cities who have done this PDE only.

City of Fort Smiths have admin and pursuit or patrol type vehicles, and it's a very nice split.

And so when we get it a little bit further into the introduction of this program, you'll understand more why that may is so important to a not only a cost-effective program, but one that will yield cost savings over time.

I put some of the cities on there, but really are sorry.

I'm I put some of the local businesses that we also do business with Pruitt Tools in Fort Smith, so we we've worked with them for more than a decade, or just to name a few.

So cities are able to utilize a piggyback off of one of our purchasing awarded contracts.

Sourcewell has been the number one that I've used for all cities that I've partnered with, both Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The last Arkansas one that we've uh partnered with was City of Centerton, before that was Harrison, and we have two counties that came on uh over the last four to five months.

What's the difference between enterprise and doing it yourself or doing it with the um with the help of a dealership?

We are a company family-owned that has grown by providing uh local client strategy managers.

So you would actually be assigned a client strategy manager.

That's not only going to help you get the vehicles in the beginning, um, we're gonna work through the whole process.

Um we're not just gonna deliver a vehicle and say C in five years.

We're going to work through that process, make sure that we're bringing proper data because some vehicles that are not fully upfit could make sense to replace on a more regular basis, um, two to three years rather, versus five or six.

So we're gonna have that on person who's coming out three to four times a year, making fleet recommendations based on the data that we're we're collecting on the fleet and making sure that we're we're adhering to that lowest cost of ownership.

When it comes to vehicles, um 65 plus years of doing this, we've we've built the infrastructure to do it extremely well.

The key components acquisition, funding, maintenance and fuel, and then vehicle resale is really kind of I guess to put it lightly or put it bluntly, that's what we do extremely well.

A lot of cities will look at other things, uh telematics, driver safety programs, and so forth, but we'll hit on those uh key areas.

As a chief had spoke to, every vehicle does have an effective vehicle life cycle where we see that trend of additional maintenance cost, uh lower fuel economy, vehicle resale going down.

So ultimately, we help pinpoint that sweet spot to replace that vehicle.

Um for patrol pursuit type vehicles, we're probably looking around five to six years or under a hundred thousand miles.

Anything that is a little less upfit would be looked at uh on a routine basis where we're able to determine where the best point to get rid of that vehicle would be.

So the number one question or concern, and we can we can pause at this point if there's any questions from you.

Um the open-ended equity lease.

Most people hear the word lease, they start thinking that there's going to be the traditional mileage parameters, the traditional penalties for going over those restrictions.

There's no mileage penalties, no wear and tear, and the city would retain all equity at the end.

So if I take a $50,000 vehicle, I run it down to a $10,000 balance.

That's what classifies it as an operating or capital lease.

At the end, when I sell that vehicle for $20, for example's sake, the city would retain $10,000 of equity coming back to them.

Any questions at this point?

Oh, no, go ahead and bench.

Okay, perfect.

One of the other areas that we we find that we can have an impact.

Um, we have a budgeted maintenance program for all non-pursuit type vehicles that we will fully budget all maintenance repairs.

Um, we handle all that process.

It covers everything from an oil change to an engine replacement.

Um the actual pursuit fleet and in the existing fleet as well, we're gonna put a maintenance management.

We were able to start tracking all that data, knowing exactly what these vehicles are costing to maintain, and so next year and the next year, we'll be able to bring recommendations on which vehicles have cost the city the most, which vehicles make sense to replace from a resale standpoint, and so we'll have a lot more data to be able to give you more in-depth information on which vehicles make the most sense to replace.

And if you kind of see the trend of where everything's going, the more data Enterprise has, the better recommendations that we can actually provide, and the more efficient we are with lowering that cost of ownership and putting the city of Fort Smith in a better place financially down the road.

And then really the key component where we differ from anyone else, we operate around 2.4 million vehicles.

We sell about 1.1 of those every year.

And so whenever you think about that, Enterprises probably one of the largest sellers of vehicles in the U.S.

We do not sell them directly to auctions.

We would hand sell all vehicles through our processes, and what that means for our clients is that we're bringing in 15 to 20% better than book value on average.

So we're adding more money on the back end to make the cost of ownership better for you and better to cycle vehicles at certain points.

And then all this obviously comes with a bunch of data, a lot of different uh computer softwares, uh Kenneth would probably say that this is probably where we we can benefit the most as far as what the ability to pull reports, understand exactly what your fleet is doing, but it also puts the hands, the drivers with reminders to make sure that they're getting their oil changes and so forth.

Um but again, data-driven gives us a lot of uh ammunition to make sure that we're doing these vehicles at the right possible time.

So we'll jump into the fleet profile analysis to kind of give everybody an idea of where the fleet is at today, and we'll we'll run through that.

About 150 vehicles in the fleet, estimated value without seeing a single one of them of about two million, just based on age and mileage and what our data would tell us the key components, 43 vehicles over 10 years.

Um, if we looked at uh average annual acquisitions of around 10, we're holding them around 50, 15 years uh a time.

So, what that's telling us instantly is that we're spending a lot more on maintenance and fuel than we should be, and we've lost all the resale value on these vehicles when they're time to dispose of them.

Not a huge difference.

I mean, mostly we're looking at SUVs, cars, and and a few trucks.

Um, when we looked at this, and again them uh working with it with Kenneth, there's just a an unbelievable way of looking at this and saying, Hey, there's uh an opportunity for us to replace vehicles with the right type of vehicles, which allows us to bring better resale at the end.

And so looking at this, there's gonna be a shift in what types of vehicles we're buying to make sure that we're optimizing the return at the end of it.

Um, and we'll we'll speak a little bit more when we're talking through the model.

And then this is just an overview when we first started looking at this, just giving ourselves an idea where the cents per mile was at.

This was probably November-ish when we looked at this, so the fuel per gallon or the fuel cost per gallon is went down a little bit.

Uh fingers crossed, it stays there for a little bit.

Um, but it gives us a good idea where our starting point is and where we need to try to get down.

I would imagine that this fleet should operate around 57 or 58 cents a mile if we effectively put in the right steps.

And here's the right steps.

So, looking at this model, I won't go through it line by line, but what it's basically telling us to do is to take the 149 vehicles that we've been discussing that are driving annually about 13.5 across the board.

We're gonna take the current maintenance of around 280, and we're gonna look at that in a proposed cycle of about five-year rotation based on the the data that we have.

Proposed maintenance should drop to about sixty dollars per month, and then we'll start seeing some reductions.

So, in year one, we take the 140, the orange line that's up there, we take the 149 vehicles.

Uh I'm sorry, this is y'all's data, 149 uh purchasing them for about 990 uh for the 18 vehicles that you annually purchased.

If we were to look at this for spending about a million bucks in that first year, 500,000 in maintenance, 700,000 in fuel, and then you're selling 18 vehicles that are the worst ones in the fleet, so they're not bringing much back.

So, fleet budget is about 2.2 million.

Whenever we look at year 2025, we have 149 vehicles, we're replacing 60.

You'll still have 89 to owned.

The lease payments are around 751,000.

We're putting down payments on the aftermarket, a 50% of the down or 50% of the aftermarket, we're paying down up front.

So that equipment's not killing you year over year over year.

Um that gives us a total capital outlay of 976 maintenance.

We are now have 60 brand new vehicles that are gonna need oil changes and tire rotations.

And so you'll see your maintenance drop and then you'll see a pretty big spike of resale because you're selling off 60 of your units, which not only gets rid of the oldest ones, but it's starting to get into that sweet spot of where the vehicles sell the best.

And so you'll see that perk up a little bit.

Going through this whole process, yes, you'll see some negative years where we're spending more but more than anything we're seeing positive years.

About a 10-year savings of 1.8 million, um average sustainable of 24,000 dollars a year.

This is what I consider a wash uh program where it does not cost you any money.

I do think that there's some savings to it, but this is allowing the city to move from ten years to five years on a normal risk uh cycle, and then as he mentioned the benefits that I'm I'm not speaking of is the employee morale, making sure that these vehicles are in working uh good working order and keeping our officers safe.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh it is Chief.

Go ahead.

Just to add to some of the things that you said and expound on.

Um the the type of vehicle that we're looking at uh going to is uh uh a uh quad cab four-wheel drive pickup, which their resale value is much better than any other vehic any other vehicle on the road right now.

Um I mean I'm sure a question on everybody's mind is how much?

And uh with the 60 vehicles, I think we're looking right at a million dollars.

976.

Uh 976.

Yeah, right at a million dollars in year one.

Um we have that in our budget.

Uh you give us the million dollars every year uh for small equipment, and quite frankly, that's been being used primarily for vehicles.

Uh if we go this, if we do this, I will have to go back to the drawing board on uh our capital improvement uh plan or um strategic spending plan, but I intend to do that anyway.

Uh as as you know I intend to uh ask for um employee raises for the police officers uh so that's gonna require me uh readdressing uh some of the things that we have said that we were going to spend and how we were gonna do that spending.

But I say I'll say uh it's not gonna be any additional money out of uh the general fund budget than we've already been budgeted for 2026 for for year one.

Um we're gonna be looking at increasing the size of our fleet so we can get more uh vehicles out there on in and officers in those vehicles.

Uh but it outside of that any questions about the program itself or concerns.

Okay.

Director Christina Savage.

Will this negate the need for the crane key building?

Uh say the first part again.

So will this negate the need for the crane key building?

What was that the the intention of buying it was to do our maintenance and things there?

Well, there were there's actually um two separate properties there.

And there was the we have the second precinct and train facility that we're still working on, but then the uh the other property was intended to be a fleet maintenance, citywide fleet maintenance.

Um this is citywide, not just for the police.

Okay.

Correct.

Got it.

Thank you.

Uh Director Kemp.

Thank you for the clarification on the crane key, because I was definitely with Director Christina Cassavis about, you know, is this gonna we have this property with the garage or would the repairs be done there?

The other one is this something you've been wanting to do for years and what brings it to this timing now?

It sounds like a good idea listening to it, but is this an idea you've thought of before, or did you have hesitations before?

And now you have different a viewpoint that made you to move on this now?

Uh we've actually approached the board a couple of times over the last 10 or 15 years.

You say the last time was 2017.

Um it just uh we keep it's it's this endless cycle.

Um, you know, we we get we we buy vehicles, we get them in the fleet, we feel like we're in a good good spot, and then you know, it uh other needs in the city come up, um other spending priorities, and so I mean, like I said, the police department is always conscientious of that.

We try to make do with what we have and maybe not say something when we should.

Um but when we start getting vehicles that have ten years on them or approaching that ten year mark uh and they start having serious maintenance issues.

We have one or two or three police cars go down that are in the shop, that affects all the rest of them because now all the other vehicles are getting even more of a load on them uh because again they're having to hot seat them.

And so it's just like this vicious cycle, and then we come back to you asking for a big spin to buy eight or ten vehicles to you know get us back to where we were, and we're just we're just continually staving off the inevitable, and it seems like this is the best solution to that.

And uh everybody I've talked to, there's a few exceptions.

I mean, there's some places that have have done it and gone back to buying, but they have a lot more um free money available to do that.

Uh and their situations are a little bit different than ours as well, but for the most part, uh everybody I've talked to, including the chief at Little Rock, um they say it it's a great great thing.

Um it really takes a lot of the uh um need to constantly be, you know, trying to jockey these vehicles around and and figure out how we're gonna, you know, buy one here, buy one there.

And that's the other thing about this program is they deliver the vehicles fully up fit.

Uh and so you know, we're not gonna have to be constantly struggling with that, trying to get vehicles shipped, looking for vehicles, that's been a challenge for us.

I mean, they can find they can find them all over the nation and and deliver them.

Um, we we're kind of limped a lot of times than even having a vehicle available to purchase.

So there's just so many things that seem like, you know, at this point in time, especially when we're talking, you know, uh being hyper focused on budgets and that sort of thing.

Um I just uh it it seemed like the time was right to make another run edit.

I like the predictable cost factor, um, which still allows for policing and all the things of that nature.

Are there downsides?

Is there cons to this idea from your vantage point?

Obviously the pros may still way out weigh the cons, but are there cons?

Uh well.

I give you a lot of people.

He he he's here I'll let you talk to the guy that's actually had the lease program in his previous So I've worked for two agencies that did enterprise leasing.

The only downside I know of is you never own the vehicles.

Uh I mean, if you want to own them, then you don't you do never own them.

There is a possibility of buying them out at the end of the lease if you want to, but in practice, uh I mean I'm not a fan of owning depreciating assets anyway.

So the there's some advantage to that.

We went through this exact thing in back in Texas.

This exact thing of the aging fleet, the the constant uh when you when it comes time to buy cars, it's hey, we're gonna go on this fleet replacement program, we're gonna have it funded, we'll have cars every year, and then the next year comes and it's like we're gonna have to cut a few cars because we've got this other competing priority this year.

Uh, the advantage to this approach is that you know you're not paying obviously full price for the cars in a given year, and you're also not paying for the residual value of the vehicle either.

So you have the ability to leverage your funds and go your your money just goes a lot further.

Um I talked to uh a lot of folks in Arkansas because I wanted to be sure that I've seen this work very well in Texas, uh but I wanted to be sure that there weren't some pitfalls or something that I didn't know about Arkansas that might uh be a stumbling block.

Uh I haven't got anything but positive reviews.

Um in fact, uh as the chief was saying, there's there's folks that uh I know of one place that's moved away from them, but they said it sounds like it'd be a good fit for you, it just isn't a good fit for us now that our circumstances have changed.

Um I reached out to the city manager of the city where I used to work uh and they are on currently on an enterprise lease, and she her words were it's a game changer.

Um she said we just don't worry about vehicles anymore.

We uh you know we have our quarterly meetings with them.

They tell us, hey, this vehicle should go right now because the market for this vehicle is particularly strong and you'll get the best possible resale value, even though you're only 18 months, two years, three years into this vehicle, we say go ahead and get rid of it now.

Also because there is a corresponding replacement that has got really strong rebates right now.

So we say that that's the stuff we can't do ourselves.

That's the stuff that they come in, they say this manufacturers offering great rebates on this particular vehicle that makes a it's a great match for the vehicle that actually our data tells us is selling really well on the secondary market right now.

So uh if if I could do it myself I would, but uh Director Neil Martin and then direct the settle.

Could you define a hot seat for me, please?

I can I can't.

So that's uh one officer taking a vehicle from another officer.

Okay, just I pull in at 7 a.m.

I give it to somebody else.

Exactly.

Um what was the what was the reasoning the board, and I'm looking at Kevin because he's the one that's been here for the longest.

Um what was the reasoning that the board chose not to move forward?

Do you recall that?

Yeah, I already do.

I mean, it every time we look at the math, it's always the cost at the the end of the end of the day ends up cost.

Leasing at the if you know if you what we looked at the previous, maybe it's different today, but in the previous long term it costs you more to lease than it would buy.

But what by leasing to uh Chief Baker's point, you're you're setting up you're setting those vehicles there on a permit basis.

So if I read the math here, it's look like 1.86 million dollars a year of being vehicles every year going from year six on, right?

At least the lease number 1.668?

But 1866.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, 1866.

Yeah, so that that is gonna be your that's gonna be your lease payment for for this, and then after 10 years negotiating.

So it always, you know, is if you if you went the other route, would you save money?

But then to what's been said is hey, budget is tight, let's pull vehicles back.

So that's that's been a give and take on this.

Um we've we've leased uh we went the route in the sanitation department leasing and then we pulled back.

So it it it depends where it is, and I I uh if I say anything wrong, please speak.

But I that that's kind of what I was looking at is you're gonna pay 751 the first year, and but by year four five, you're gonna be one point eight six six million per year, but then at that point you get a new vehicle every five or six years.

You'll you'll also have revenues coming back in from the sale of the vehicles.

Yes, all that so that's the the other column on the far right, right?

So uh and to that point um the resale that amount comes back to the city?

Because it's really enterprise that owns it.

The equity comes back to the city.

The equity comes back to the equity that number is.

That's interesting.

Right.

Sorry.

But is that the net cash line on the very right hand side?

I don't have that in front of the so you're saying at the end of in 10 years you would net 1.795 million dollars.

So Andy had uh some questions as well, and I mean we've had him, you know, walking with us on this, and I think all of his concerns were uh abated, but one of the things that we have discussed is creating a specific fund for this.

Um, but with with the within the department uh the city budget, so all the transactions take place in and out of that particular fund.

And um which will make it easier.

I mean, if if we're successful, and it's a good thing we you know if we want to get more departments on board some of their fleets, then that'll already be established.

So what would what would the what would the budget look like here?

Would it I mean when we when we go to budget due to the 2025 budget, what's that line item for for fleets?

Because would would we say it's or what would be the line item for this lease?

Would it be um 75176, or would it be something that comes uh you know the over on the right the right hand side?

So they would give 961?

Yeah.

I mean it's essentially a million.

It would be the same.

So that'd be that'd be the line item, but we're getting rebates on the on the other end of it, right?

Right.

Yeah, that'll start probably it'll be a year or two before that we start seeing that.

Like I said, we're wanting to increase the fleet size, so we're gonna be hanging on to um some vehicles that we could sell, but um number one, we've just bought several new vehicles really no reason to get rid of them.

Um we have other funds available that we can uh combine with that million dollars.

Um we have funds that are earmarked uh from the courts specifically for uh police vehicles.

And so I mean we we we can we can absorb this.

Um we can we we can absorb this without there being a uh a big increase on on the uh general fund budget.

Okay.

And and the you you think the that fuel cost is that would be your fuel cost regardless if we went with this or not.

What's that?

It'll go down some.

I mean just because new requirements are newer cars are gonna be fueled more fuel.

Right.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Uh so will you finish.

No, I got a question.

So um how is insurance covered this?

Um I got that's what I'm gonna do.

Are we still covering a MISP league or is it same way?

Same way insurance, same way an action happens, it's all the same way.

And has that been vetted through the Miss Believe to make sure that's covered?

Well, and Creek Killer is who I've got to deal with on that.

And she's she's vetted that to the Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And and as I mentioned, there are other cities in the state that are particip participating in this program that also are AML participants.

Centerton was with the AML.

Okay.

Director Christine's?

Um my question was about insurance.

So Director Settle already asked it.

Director Neil Martin.

Yeah, I do.

Are these all gas or any of these electric?

No electric.

Okay.

It is whatever.

Okay.

So electric.

Okay.

None of this is locked into a specific model or anything else.

Okay.

It's what suits our needs.

Okay.

We'll do a complete analysis of what we want to buy and what we want to sell.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mr.

Dingman, you know.

No, I would say, you know, from from my perspective, we we've had we have had these discussions in the past, and part of part of I think what and it I mean it would it I think we got really close in 2017 to to considering this on a citywide basis even.

Um I think one of the reasons that it ended up not going was because of the unknown and the the point that uh Mr.

Dennis made was that you don't own the vehicles at you know typically at the end.

And so you know the the fear I suppose was well what if we want to get out of this, we don't own any vehicles.

Well the the program is supposed to I mean and one of the one of the things that I see as a positive for this discussion is that frankly Dan has been involved in a an agency that owned its vehicles and went through this process to start up the leasing program.

I mean, and that's it's you know he's one of our guys that has been through this before and that's and has seen the positive results for it.

And so that's I mean that's made me uh made me interest interested in in following through on it.

And the other the other part of it is is in some of our uh in our enterprise funds, particularly solid waste and streets, we have we've had the ability to fund sinking funds for equipment replacement, and that that is not going to be a possibility in the general fund or the police department, uh the general fund departments, police, fire, uh parks are are not revenue generating.

We they don't we don't have the ability to front-end load the funding needed to start a sinking fund for the you know pretty intensive equipment needs that the police department has.

And so this is a way to accomplish that objective with I mean um on a on a prescribed basis that makes use of the the dollars that that uh the we're already budgeting in police department.

Right.

So did you have it for the comments?

I got one question.

If the price of cars goes up, does the lease payment go up?

Yes, so that that was actually one of the key points.

Sorry.

Uh one of the key points that I was thinking the whole time you were talking about mathematically.

Um 2017, these cars cost 35 or 40%.

Well that's my next question.

If the price goes down, does the lease go down?

Yeah.

I mean, so whenever we set this in, it's a fixed cost throughout the life of that term.

So if we buy a $60,000 vehicle fully upfit, that's what we're depreciating, and that's the lease payment.

Um that's but let's say in two years the cost goes down 15 percent.

Yeah, future cars at that point.

But the ones you've already purchased does not.

Those are we purchased.

Said already.

I get that, but uh if you if you continue on, so if the price goes down 15, 20 percent, the price goes up 1520 percent, you're gonna Evan Flow each year, depending on that cost.

Absolutely.

And I think that's where we're we're heading as the rebound.

Um just for example, the Durango pursuit was a three thousand dollar incentive last year, it's moved to a six thousand dollar incentive.

So these things are getting better um post-COVID.

So these manufacturers are producing vehicles at a better better rate.

The one thing that I think from 2017 till now, and I didn't present it the last time, one of my counterparts had maintenance costs have drastically went up across to all fleets, and it's because of the lack of parts, the lack of mechanics.

And so that's one of the areas that I can see just looking at this analysis, and it's a model.

Things can change with every part of it.

But maintenance is gonna drastically go down.

You're gonna have sixty new vehicles in that first year that will need oil changes and uh tire rotations and they're replacing vehicles that needs engines and transmissions.

So if we turn those police vehicles back to enterprises sell, do you all sell them as police vehicles, or do you strip out the police cell and sell them as XYZ cars?

Current process is we would we would bring them back to a regular vehicle.

Um what's in the works is working through enough vendors that sell these vehicles as complete vehicles to increase the resale side of it.

A lot of this equipment should be able to be moved.

Um a good portion of the the uh equipment that's on the vehicles could be moved from vehicles to vehicles.

Or to another city that maybe only needs one or two vehicles in a smaller community or something like that.

My hopes is we've been running the same equipment, the aftermarket, the the upfit, the police lights, sirens and all that for ten years plus.

If we're replacing this every five years, would it make sense to replace that or move that equipment from one to another or not?

And that's where we'll bring the data.

Thank you.

Danny, may I go quick with if if the board approves this, how soon would you want to just to implement this plan?

January one.

January one.

We need to actually if uh and that was part of the urgency of this is you know, we can go ahead and put the order in if we believe we're going to be able to move forward with this.

We won't have to pay anything until they're delivered, but because of the availability of vehicles, it we need to get it we need to get a jump start on it.

When's our budget hearings?

October or November.

When do we have our budget hearing?

It will be probably in the early part of November.

But there I mean, but you we could bring this to the board and acting that we do this and have a have a vote of the board so Danny would have directions.

So you could get a you can go ahead and order the trucks as soon as the board approves this.

The order banks are about to open that so recommended.

Yeah, the it's about to open up to to order.

I mean we would basically be, I guess, reserving them in a way.

Um I don't think we would be obligated to buy them if you came back and said no.

But from from now until then, are we still okay car wise?

Uh well, we're making do.

I mean, I know we've hit we lost some uh making do.

We're we're about to potentially lose several more to state police, so um but I mean the the vehicle, as I said, the vehicle situation is it's a constant battle.

So all right, Danny, thank you.

Yeah, okay.

Thanks.

Any more questions for the chief?

Jeff, do you need a motion to put this on another night?

Resolution?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it'll be the board approved.

It doesn't have to be as soon as Tuesday.

Yeah, no.

As quick as soon as possible.

Yeah, bring it back as soon as possible.

I'm good with that.

Okay.

All right.

Any other discussions there?

You know the discussions for the chief.

Okay.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

What do we do, Mandy?

If you have not taken to review the preliminary agenda for August the 19th.

Okay.

If there are no questions on that this time, we'll go to the citizens' forum.

Madam Clerk.

Yes, first we have Charlie Hartsfield.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Came through and just kind of ripped out all the all the stuff.

Yes, sir.

And so all the stuff the stuff would be.

Well, the bookslide, the little winked horse, it's all that stuff.

It's all gone.

Yeah.

And normally there's you know, three or four or five kids in there playing on a nice evening.

Well, we've got this big scar just of uh mud.

Well, it's not mud, it's clay, Arkansas stuff.

So and I was looking at last night with uh with a neighbor, she said that's just stupid.

That's her that's her word, but it seems like from our viewpoint, you wait till you're able to put the stuff in before you take all this stuff.

We take it out, it's right.

You know.

So there's been nothing to play on for three months.

It just seems foolish.

Well, what happened there, Jeff?

That that park is being renovated.

I know why the time of the time-lapse.

I can't speak to that other than just staff time to get the new stuff installed.

I don't I don't I don't know for a fact that we have the new equipment in.

I think that it is anticipated if it's not, but it this anticipated to be completed this fall.

Well, but you could have left all the good little ten-year-old things in there until it's time to go.

Yeah.

You right, so anyway.

And I don't know, this is the question is is the I because I don't go by there.

Are the are the slides up that we bought?

Yeah.

They're up.

And we're not going to be able to do that.

What's you talking about?

At the water park.

No, they're not.

They're not up yet.

We spent all that money.

Summer's gonna be over.

What happened?

Uh the way I understand it, they won't be up in twenty-five.

So it's laying there.

Four million in the bank would are drawing interest instead of laying on the ground.

Do you I don't know.

Does some does somebody have an update on the timing on that?

No, the the design for that uh is nearing completion, and then when that's complete, there will be bid a bid process.

Well, it just don't make sense to the citizens because we s it just didn't make there's a reason for it, I'm sure, but it just doesn't look right.

That's a lot of money on the ground out there.

Uh Jeff to the gentleman's comment, also we we still have a lot of that money drawing interest, hopefully, don't we?

That's true.

Yes.

So uh just that I know I'm with you, but I'm but I'm saying we are the money has to be a little bit more than a lot of things.

Yeah.

So we we carried over quite how much how much of that?

Um I don't know what the carryover is.

I think we still have 1.6 or 1.7 that's not been spent yet.

Okay.

So that kind of helps.

Okay.

That's all my comment.

Okay, thank you.

Ms.

Rossville, do you want the city to put out a press release about the the park?

What?

A press release, telling the people up there what's happening or an illness?

Yeah, Josh, where's Josh?

Well, the the neighborhood got a sheet with it.

Suppose it the reasons there's a groundwater, there's a clay, there's soft how hard when you pour the concrete.

Yeah.

But you'd think that just leave the stuff there until the ground's ready.

Oh, I agree.

There's about a 20 square block area that people come in out of there.

Yeah.

And I think you've allotted forty four four hundred million dollars, no, four hundred thousand dollars for upgrade for that little part.

Or uh uh I'd have to look at that.

That's a lot of money.

I mean, I don't know.

I heard that about three months ago.

I didn't I think we'd have to go back and look at the CIP.

That sounds like a lot for that little part.

Maybe tell us.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Arshville.

Next we have Donald Moon.

Yeah, he's not yeah, he's not here.

Okay.

Andy Postric.

Hi everybody, uh Andy Posterick.

I love living in Fort Smith because of the traditional development patterns.

That's not the first time I've talked to you about them.

Uh and just to refresh your memory about what a traditional development pattern is, that's most of Fort Smith.

Uh basically like the whole northern half of the city is a traditional grid.

And uh if you live in a in a neighborhood that would be described as cute, uh, I think that that's really important that we protect and preserve those.

Um sometimes I talk about this and people think that I'm kind of radical.

And uh Saturday morning I woke up thinking about parking and parking downtown, and um not for or against the free parking or the meters, but I just posted a little um a number of of brief thoughts about that.

And and somebody replied to me, and uh her her reply kind of stuck with me because really uh traditional development patterns are something that I don't think anybody here really got to appreciate uh fully like maybe two or three generations got to.

So I was just gonna share her experience.

And this is what she wrote.

She said, when I was growing up in the 1950s and sixties, it was a pleasure to walk downtown Fort Smith.

Lots of fantastic shops and stores.

But along came malls and shopping centers on the outskirts of town in ruins in ruins downtown shopping and walking.

All the metered parking spots were full, and more people rode the buses just to shop, walking from store to store.

Progress ruined Fort Smith's downtown.

I haven't shopped or walked downtown since the late 1970s.

I go downtown to the bank or to my lawyer, which are next to each other.

Bring downtown back the way it was, and your revenue will increase.

And um I I totally uh felt that when she spoke to that, because that's something that I've been and trying to think about ways that we can improve not just our downtown but all of our traditional development patterns.

And uh Main Street Fort Smith, I think is doing a great job, but they're also sort of they're part of a national coalition of all these other cities that are also trying these same ideas.

And I was hoping if I could get you guys to start thinking of your own radical ideas that other cities haven't tried yet.

And I have an idea, it's high risk, high reward.

It's not gonna it's not gonna make me cry uh if we don't do it.

I'm developing a PowerPoint about it.

Um but just to give you a brief uh synopsis, it would just be tweaking the way that we tax property downtown currently.

Currently, uh we have the improved structure value and the land value and their tax at that same millage rate.

And some funny things will happen if you start tipping the scales and dropping the property tax value and raising the land tax value and some really incredible things.

Uh if you go and dig up uh some historical newspapers, um here in in Fort Smith, Arkansas, we had an a newspaper article about this.

It's called the single tax, by the way.

Uh it's also called the perfect tax or the least bad tax.

Um but uh we had it we had a newspaper article about Vancouver, British Columbia when they tried it.

And according to the Fort Smith newspaper at the time, uh Vancouver's population doubled in only three years once they switched this taxation system.

Um so I'm I'm working on that and uh some other states are trying to incorporate it.

Uh they're going about it the completely wrong way because they're starting out at the top up at the state government level.

And I think we have to start at at the business owner level, and then if they want it, talk to the the bank downtown, make sure they want it, and then talk to y'all to see if you want it, and then up from there.

Um but uh I would also just I hope maybe some of you can think of some of your own ideas to to come up with something that the other cities haven't tried to restore and uplift our traditional areas of town.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Andy.

Next we have Crystal Cadelli.

Not used to sitting down.

Good evening.

Um I'd like to take um this time to uh talk about the AMI water meters.

Um I would like to express my concern regarding um the adoption of the meters.

There are numerous reasons why I believe investing in the AMI technology may not be prudent for the city.

Um various factors that you know I have investigated and read about that could hinder its effectiveness, which is poor data quality caused by any weather related debris.

Um, calibration issues, and um communication problems stemming from weak signals.

Um a notable example for this is Toronto, and I don't know if you guys have read about it, but they invested millions in the AMI uh meter systems, and they failed um eight or nine years early, which then caused them multi-million dollars, and their residents had to pay um bag fees because their water bills were inaccurate as well.

Um additionally, the operation costs of these uh meters would be you know, keeping them calibrated and cleaning them, which could be significant cost.

Um in my view, it would be more beneficial to replace these existing meters that currently have the plastic housing, which seems to be what is creating them to be ineffective and causing the failures with water meters that do not have the plastic housing, which there are several options that are out there that can still be you know chose from.

And then all this could be replaced under 10 million dollars for the whole city and would preserve the jobs for our current meter readers.

Um this approach would also free up at least 30 plus million dollars that could be allocated to replacing the leaking water lines and the aging infrastructure.

We could proactively replace these water lines that we know are gonna eventually leak.

Um then as well as upgrading um our storm water systems.

It seems like we do have a lot of outdated stormwater systems, and I feel like there's no reason that we should allow properties just to sit vacant that could be used for commercial or residential needs that are not in floodplains.

They're just being flooded because we have uh aging infrastructure that we're not paying attention to.

I just think that it's time that you know we look at our priorities as a city and um spend our money wisely and think about the future instead of just the now.

I just don't think it is a safe affordable approach at this time next we have Joe Elskin better just to stand um I hope what I'm worried about is my concerns are unfounded but you know ounce of prevention I guess I hope that you all saw the um article in talk business and politics about the aquifer levels falling and that just brought me to yes water is not a limitless resource um we are as a growing city we're using going to be using more AI uses more industry that we want to come in uses more and agriculture is uh most of our income I mean you know poultry is nearly eight billion uh rice we supply half of the nation's use uh for rice so our water supply up the aquifer that that resources us um resources a lot of small farmers and so we can't depend upon other people having a water supply and I am really concerned that money that your need for a source of income to balance out the expenses that we are looking at particularly the the consent decree um that that need for money would mean that you would not look at the big picture and the big picture is resources need to be uh comprehensively managed and that that is something that I don't know the state is doing but I think we need to do we need to look at um being very careful about our use of of our sources our resources and water is um you know uncontaminated water because the the flooding does contaminate the aquifers so um you know we're we're looking at what could be a real problem for us and I would desperately hope you would not sell a lot of water to Franklin the Franklin prison.

I hope that is totally an unfounded concern okay thank you okay thank you that's all that's signed in okay thank you uh at this time we will um go into a special meeting do we need you to adjourn this meeting okay just um we need a motion to adjourn thank you take five minutes and I hit the one to I am I am not special meeting yeah he did not leave it as only what was I don't you know I can't let them have five minutes we really take five minutes I've never seen him get so early where's Neil to those in the room the board to stay in this room and everyone else will we need to adjourn well after when you when they go into a a special meeting there will be an executive session as part of that the planning commission is done.

I see the planning people are in here so we're doing there can we so every everyone that's in the audience and staff will go be able to go into the the larger room the board and whoever they need in here for the executive session can stay in special meeting here.

The board yeah we need to start the meeting up and then call your executive session and then everybody else will leave and we all can stay in here.

Just if we're gonna stay in here is Josh going to manage and make sure that the camera is off.

Okay, at this time we're gonna call a special meeting.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the role?

Director Rego?

Here.

Here.

Here.

George Kitzavis.

Christina Kitzavis.

Settled.

Martin.

Here.

Okay, thank you very much.

At this time, we will ask if there's any item of business of any board member that's not already on the agenda.

Okay, seeing none at this time, we're going to go into an executive session to discuss the appointment of an internal auditor.

Well, I can add you ready.

Okay.

Uh I'll say something and then you can make the motion.

Okay.

Thank you for working out.

At this time we're going to reconvene.

And I think we have a motion from Director Kemp to be made.

Director Kemp be recognized.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to make a motion to appoint Amanda Strange, Director of Internal Audit pending a finalization of employment agreement.

Resolution affirming appointment and agreement on the September 2nd regular meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Uh we need a second.

Second.

Okay.

Madam Clerk, is there any further discussion?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Directors Rego?

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Kemp?

Yes.

Christina Kitsavis.

Settled?

Yes.

Martin.

Yes.

Motion passes five in favor.

Okay, thank you.

Is there any other business to come before the board?

Just one reminder for uh um August the twenty-second.

We do have our strategic workshop scheduled.

It's a Friday.

That'll be at the Regions Regions Bank building at 524 Garrison on the seventh floor at 830 in the morning.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else?

If not, motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

They got a cool spot up there, right?

Yeah, on the top floor.

Yeah, stalling place.

It's still up there.