Good evening and welcome to the Fort Smith City Board of Directors Study Session on this January 13th of 2026.

Keep in mind these meetings are being televised live for the benefit of our residents who can't be with us in person.

Um couple of housekeeping notes.

Keep in mind that there are no public comments during the study session and even doing the citizens' form.

Uh you required uh there would be no discussion on items that are on tonight's agenda.

Okay.

With that, we will go to the first item on the agenda.

Thank you, Mayor.

The first item of the tonight is an update and presentation from RDG planning and design on the master plan project for the acne brick property.

The city purchased this property in 2023 for the joint purpose of stormwater mitigation, property reclamation, and parks amenities.

While work on the stormwater management portion of the project is progressing, the city contracted with RDG planning and design about a year ago to solicit community feedback and present options as to what the city might do with the property above and beyond the stormwater management component.

At this point, I will ask uh Scott Crawford and Brian Trustee from RDG to uh go through their presentation and uh answer questions that the board may have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff, and members of the board and those in attendance.

As Jeff mentioned, my name is Scott Crawford.

I'm with RDG Planning Design.

Joining me today is Brian Trusty with PROS Consulting, one of our consulting partners that's been working on the project since we began.

And what we'd like to do tonight is uh share with you the process that we've gone through to date, uh, the material that's been generated, the feedback we've received from the community thus far, and then uh a brief overview of what the next steps are.

And we'll go through this pretty quickly.

If you have questions, feel free to chime in.

We can certainly entertain questions as we go or at the end.

The overall uh cadence of what we'd like to review is give you an overview of the master planning part A process that we've been through, summarize the guiding principles that were established by the various committees that oversaw the project, uh, walk through the preliminary concept alternatives for the property that have been developed to date, share with you several case studies that are similar to what is being articulated in those alternatives, and then spend about the second half of our presentation summarizing the community engagement and feedback that we've received today.

So without uh further ado, the master planning part A, if you recall when RDG was contracted with the city, we identified part A and Part B master planning services.

We are nearing the conclusion of part A at this point.

This is the consulting team that's been working on the project from the very beginning that included us, RDG, Brian with PROS Consulting, as well as his uh colleague Dalton and McClellan uh consulting engineers here in Fort Smith, Chris, Andy, and Ben have been assisting with that um here locally.

The committee structure that was established was there was a core team that provided oversight for the project and guidance, a technical committee that consists of several directors within the city to provide technical assistance and review of the concept alternatives as they were being created, and a steering committee of other community constituents and leaders throughout Fort Smith that all met on a regular cadence through the process.

Phase one or part A included initial goal setting, which established the guiding principles that we're about to jump into, extensive inventory and analysis, some marketing market analysis and benchmarking against other communities and project types of similar typology, extensive coordination with the stormwater management and mitigation project that Half Associates was leading with civil engineering or with uh city engineering, and then uh that culminated in the concept uh alternatives that were developed that we're going to share tonight.

That process uh started in earnest in April, and we're here today in January to get uh final feedback from the uh board of directors.

We'll do a similar presentation with the parks and recreation commission tomorrow and collect their feedback and then bundle all that up into a phase 1A deliverable to Sarah and the Parks and Recreation Department that will essentially be the first three chapters of the master plan report.

So the guiding principles that were established from the project, these were several of the images that resonated and scored very, very highly through a pretty extensive visual listening exercise that we did with the technical committee, the steering committee, and then asked the general public to weigh in during the public open house in December as far as the character, recreational opportunities and overall aesthetic that was desired for the property in the future.

Those informed the six guiding principles that were established.

Number one being flood mitigation and stormwater management above all.

Number two being designing with nature to inspire, engage, and connect people back to nature, low maintenance and operational resiliency, uniqueness of place, accessibility, and overall economic benefit to Fort Smith.

And we'll go through just a short bit of detail on each one of these.

The flood mitigation and stormwater management, first and foremost for the property to mitigate uh flooding downstream through stormwater detention basins.

Designing with nature to connect people back to nature through the decades of mining and brick production that took place on a very heavy industrial scale to bring and restore uh the native environment and connect people back to that on the property.

Low maintenance and operational resiliency has been top of mind, durable materials, resiliency of how they're actually put together, and operational efficiencies to benefit the city long term.

Uniqueness of place for those of you that had the opportunity to be out on the site.

It's a quite a compelling experience.

It has one of the highest elevation points in the county that overlooks the river valley and downtown with some pretty impressive views up on the top ridge and a very expansive open area down on the lower area.

Accessibility, designing experiences for people of all generations, mobilities and accessible opportunities for people to experience things together.

And the sixth and final guiding principle was overall economic uh benefit to this to the community through direct and indirect dollars that could be realized and/or generated both in the short term and long term from development of this property into a public amenity.

The three primary concept alternatives that were developed were all grounded in those guiding principles.

Each one has a different level of emphasis and articulation of the guiding principles.

And these the information that we're about to walk through is all available to anyone in the public that wants to view it on the website that was launched shortly after the public open house, the third week of December, and we'll walk through a summary of that feedback that we received.

But connecting this park and its location to the community.

Fort Smith is very fortunate to have this much public open land available directly in the center of your community to be converted into public use and connecting that to your existing and future planned trail system.

And focusing again on that story of water.

This is essentially to identify there are on the on the right-hand side of the slide and the darker and lighter blue are the two major watersheds that flow through this site that will actually detain the water on the property, slow it down as it's released out further downstream to mitigate some of the flooding challenges that have been occurring further downstream.

And that will happen in kind of three different areas on the property that we'll talk about in just a moment.

We also looked at the history of the site as it relates to the context of the community, decades of mining that took place on the west side of the property on the west side of Old Greenwood Road.

That material then conveyed over the street and to the east side of the property, processed and produced and produced into clay and clay then fired into bricks that were used to build things throughout the community and beyond.

An additional inventory and analysis of the topography, quite a bit of grade change is just intuitively as you come down Greenwood Road and the amount of grade change that you have, all of that is articulated and even amplified on the property with some of the higher bluffs and ridge lines that exist out there as well.

And now we're going to walk through the three alternatives then that kind of took all of the community feedback that we had received, the priorities of the guiding principles, and then develop that into three primary alternatives.

Concept alternative one is focused exclusively on flood control and flood mitigation downstream.

On the east side of Greenwood Road, there would be a dry detention basin to uh detain and slow down water that's coming through that tributary.

On the west side of the road, there'd be what we're calling the central basin, which has the number three on it there in your diagrams.

And on the west side, there would be an additional basin that would be created on the west side of the property over here to detain the water here.

The intent behind all of this is to mitigate the hundred-year storm event.

Um these would be dry basins during non-rain events.

Uh they would fill up with water during rain events, slow that water release rate down as it gets uh further down into the watershed again to mitigate flooding.

The intent behind this is simply just to manage flood water.

Um right now the the pathways that are shown in here would be primarily for maintenance and likely be aggregate pathways.

This is these are some of the character imagery of what a dry detention basin would look like during a non-rain event in these areas.

Likely be mowed turf for maintenance reasons, um, and some of them would have a concrete flume that would run down the middle for some of the lower flow events.

Concept alternative two then takes the same approach to flood mitigation, meets all of the same hundred-year flood mitigation targets, but then actually looks at creating both a water recreation and park amenity integrated in that.

On the east side of Greenwood Road, given the magnitude of the size of the basin that needs to be sized there to mitigate that hundred-year event, we're not proposing too many additional improvements on that east side other than additional trail linkages in and around the actual dry basin.

On the west side, then the big design move here is to actually convert that central dry basin into a wet basin or a pond or a small lake.

And that will uh we will be able to do that and still meet all of again the hundred-year storm mitigation targets that are established for the project.

The west basin or or the basin um on the west side of the property would still remain a dry basin.

This integrates a network of trails in and around the lake.

It integrates the concept of actually putting in an adventure island out in the lake that would have two small bridges to provide connectivity to that with some adventure play elements out there.

Uh at the lower area here, there's a terrace that could have open air shelters or potentially even a day lodge.

One of the most critical pieces to this is a public amenity is this access point off of Old Greenwood right here.

That is a critical point because as we get further north, there's not enough room to provide vehicular access, and as we go further south, there's quite a bit of grade elevation change as you come up Old Greenwood Road to the south.

And so this is a very critical point.

So parking, drop-off turnaround, there's a contemplated outdoor, uh, small outdoor performance or classroom area that could be integrated into the hillside here.

And then this is the top ridge line here on the south end.

We're proposing additional vehicular access off of uh country club to the south that you would be able to come into the property, uh kind of in and around the water tower and the and the cell phone tower that are on that south end, parking available here, drop-off turnaround, the opportunity for a pump track, outdoor plaza space, additional shelters, uh there's a contemplated zip line amenity that could potentially be constructed on the park to take advantage of this being one of the highest points in the city and the county to then zip line down to a tower here and then on down to the lower end here.

Additional vehicular access over here to a cluster of open air picnic shelters and drop-off turnaround area to for people to be able to get into the trail network that would come in and around the west side of the park where there's uh densely wooded areas on the west side.

Excuse me.

And so in concept, then the way that the alternative two is implemented is that the dry basin is shown here on the on the far left diagram, the conversion of that to a wet basin with the topography shown what that would be required to do, and then of course the wet lake as it's as it would be constructed here on the on the right.

So all three of these meet all of the same flood mitigation targets uh for the property.

These are just some quick cross sections to give you a sense of the grade that exists out there.

Um the first cross section up at the top, kind of cutting through.

You can see there's an upper trail, a lower trail next to the lake, and then the water itself.

And then as you come further to the south, there's even more grade differential between that trail up on the ridge line down to the trail at the water's edge, water, the island that was spoken about earlier with some kind of adventure play experience out there, and then again the lake on the other side of the island.

And uh third and final cross section through there.

The intent is that this north end of the lake would be the deeper area, so that the entire lake could be stocked with fish for recreational purposes.

There could be a potential opportunity for kayak and or canoe rentals for on-the-water activity as well.

And those are just some of the character images related to concept alternative two.

Alternative three then takes the same flood control approach, similar water recreation and park opportunity, and then blends in the opportunity for uh portion of the land to be used for private development and other development purposes.

Uh for the for the most part, the recreational amenities with the exception of what we had proposed on the south end of the property are similar.

There is an opportunity to parcel off a portion of the land here on the east side of old Greenwood Road for potential private development shown in this area here.

And then the big move here on the south end is contemplating private development on about 13 to 15 acres on the south end of the property.

So the high end of the property off of Country Club Avenue could be a combination of mixed-use development, retail, potential apartment and or condo living, um, and maybe even some multifamily uh units that could be developed on the west side because this is kind of the high ridge line, if you can think about homes or duplexes or or small um apartment buildings being able to take advantage of those views over the park.

This was how many acres did you say that was?

It's about the weight the south end is shown as about 14 acres.

Okay, and then on the east end.

This this is a much smaller parcel of about two acres here.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And these were just ideas.

All of these were uh shared with the stakeholder groups that we met with in December, as well as with the public, and they're all available online for public comment as well.

This is these are uh a collection of character images that show what that potentially could look like as far as multifamily potential mixed use, and again, some of the recreational elements that would be implemented uh within the public domain.

And the last three slides in this section are really these are these are some of the character images that scored tremendously high both in the visual listening exercise as well as in the public open house that was facilitated in December.

Just to give you an idea of some of the things that were receiving higher scoring uh from the public.

Brian?

Thanks, Scott.

Uh again, Brian Trusty, a principal with Pros Consulting, we're teamed with RDG, focused on a lot of the market analysis, operations and maintenance planning and programming.

Um so just very briefly today.

We wanted to share with you that you know, we this was also we drew a lot from best practices from example similar type of parks across the country.

We're sharing just uh very briefly three of those uh with you this evening that were part of the thoughts uh behind some of the inspiration that shot Scott's been sharing with you in the concept alternatives.

So we first looked at Don Valley Brickwood's park, which is actually in Toronto.

These all three are uh what we call quarry parks or former quarry sites that have been turned into public uh park spaces.

This is a much larger park than what we're talking about here in Fort Smith is 440 acres.

They began its restoration 30 years ago.

Uh and based on the total amount of development that they've put into that park, adjusted for 2026 dollars.

It's equates to about 115 million dollars.

But would they have a significantly much more built-out strategy or plan than what would be considered here at Acmee Park?

What we wanted to share with you was how some of these folks can actually really turn these into vibrant public spaces.

This particular park has 15 bike trails, four ponds, an off-leash dog area, educational and interpretive science, and a park audio tour.

But very similar to Acme Park.

This park also was a former mining and brick quarry site.

More closer to home, Batavia Park District in uh Batavia, Illinois, with their quarry park.

This is a smaller, much smaller park that's primarily been developed as a swimming and a water recreation amenity within Batavia.

So it came at a much lower cost.

Its total renovation cost was less than a million dollars in 2021.

Uh and they uh it's become very popular as they sell uh admission and season passes uh to local residents and visitors to the community, and they sold over twenty twenty, five hundred season passes within 2024.

So again, this is a much smaller site, but as you can see, it's almost predominantly focused around the swimming amenity.

And the third example, which is even more closer to home, is in Knoxville, Tennessee.

And this is a park that's just recently been uh reopened.

Uh that it's 85 acres, so it's much closer, closer in scale to what we're talking about at Acme Park.

Uh they all they put in about 11 million dollars to upgrade the park in July of this last year, this current year, well, actually last year.

Again, much more focused around the lake amenity.

They do have some limited trails.

They have about four miles of trails within the park.

But looking at activating that lake as a recreational asset within the community is what their primary focus is.

I'm currently wrapping up the parks and recreation master plan for the city of Knoxville, so I've been working with them.

And one of the unique things about the way they want to approach this park is they put out an RFP for private concessionaires to come in and operate it for them so the city staff is not actually going to be operating the park itself.

And so with that, I'm going to hand it back to Scott to walk through community engagement.

Thanks, Brian.

So we wanted to conclude the presentation with sharing with the the kind of the highlights of the community engagement that we've been receiving uh through the process.

Um for those of you that don't know, there is a website that's been live since uh the third week of December following the public open house that was facilitated that has uh all the information that we're reviewing tonight is available for the public to dive in deeper and and read about more, provide comment, um, provide comments on comments, um, provide support to comments or or not support to comments, and that's all great feedback because it starts to dial in uh the pulse of the community on some of the ideas that are being contemplated for the the Acme property.

Um as I mentioned, we had listening sessions with multiple different stakeholder groups on December 14th, and uh met with a variety of representatives from the schools and colleges and universities, trails and greenways, tourism, and had a developers round table as well.

And I think there was uh it within these stakeholder groups, there was overwhelming preference uh for concept two, which was uh public amenities uh built on top of the flood mitigation measures.

There was hesitancy across, and this was not unique to the stakeholder groups.

We heard a lot of this at the public open meeting about hesitancy to sell off all or a portion of the land for private development, wanting to keep uh the majority, if not all of the land in the public domain uh for future generations to have access to that open space.

Um then there was some there was a little bit of uh discussion around just uh adjacent traffic flow and safety concerns, particularly with traffic along all Greenwood Road, if there was a desire to make a recreational connection between the east side of the property and the west side of the property, and that was a pretty consistent concern that we heard about as well.

These were some of the the image boards that were provided that people provided comment on that we're we're we're summarizing here tonight.

Um it was a well-attended event at the community open house.

We had over 50 individuals that participated.

Um we had several adjacent neighbors that participated and provided some some great feedback and and uh criticism on on both the plan and on just on the process, but also support for amenities.

And so all of that is kind of dialed in.

And again, at the community open house, one of the overwhelming uh preferred concepts was concept two.

Uh and everyone unanimously agreed that that we spoke with that evening that uh flood control should be the central focus of the project and building in recreational opportunities and amenities around the flood control measures was highly desirable.

And these were um out of that, these were some of the program preferences that kind of rose to the top amongst all of the participants as part of that uh community public open house, and you can kind of read down through the list, but uh there's several of these that are sort of activated or even made possible by the presence of water on the site.

And so that central basin being converted from a dry basin to a wet basin or even built as a wet basin initially is highly desirable by the participants that were at the public open house.

Um and again, all the information that we're reviewing tonight that was shared with the public at the public open house is all accessible on this website and go to that web address or use the QR code to access that.

I believe there's a link on the the city's website as well to get to this website if anyone is interested, interested to uh dive deeper into any of this content.

You can also provide comment and feedback.

Uh we this is currently still open.

The summary of data that we're going to share with you right now is as of January 8th, which is when we did this data export from Social Pinpoint, uh, but it is still active and you can still provide comment.

Uh but as of January 8th, there were almost a thousand unique visitors in between when this was launched and when we pulled the data down uh to the project website or to the social pinway website, 54 contributors, uh contributions by 46 contributors, and the the overall um sentiment that was shared between concept one, two, and three, if you recall, flood mitigation, flood mitigation paired with recreational opportunities, and flood mitigation, recreational opportunities paired with uh the potential for private development on concept three.

Uh 53 percent supported concept two, twenty-eight percent concept three, and nineteen uh supported concept number one.

Some of the key themes that came out of that, I just mentioned that strong support for two and three.

There was definitely um cost sensitivity to uh develop this in a fiscally responsible way.

Uh flood mitigation was was clearly off the charts as a non-negotiable uh core purpose, which is why it's resonated as guiding principle number one.

And I think the overall um uh the overall uh opportunity to actually create a community amenity here that uh be could really provide generations of residents and visitors to the community uh deeper connection with nature uh seem to resonate quite a lot with uh the visitors to Social Pinpoint thus far.

Uh one of the features on the site is people can actually drop a pen and make a specific comment around different things or different um types of amenities or or just general comments on the site, and then people that read that comment can either support or or issue a vote against that comment.

And this is simply just to represent that the some of the blue comments did receive very, very high support, almost 90 percent, and the red comments uh received quite a bit of of uh controversy or at least uh discussion around um not supporting those.

And there's just a few of those that we exerted into here.

But I think that uh I mentioned this before under bullet point number two there, some of the things that really resonated quite high with people, flood mitigation, biking and walking trails, nature and connection to nature and open spaces, and then again that guiding principle around accessibility and accessible use every day uh for people to be able to make connections through this park uh through trails.

And there was a a smaller but vocal group that's uh been active on the social pinpoint site that has favored uh the concept number one flood mitigation, and there are comments on there that support that, and uh perhaps uh deferring future improvements until later date.

But I do think that even some of the the commenters or some of the active participants on social pinpoint that that are expressing that desire to um to develop this in a in a tempoed way in a phased approach, still do believe having it in the public realm is a benefit for the future of the community.

So the next steps uh Part B services will include taking the concept alternatives well, let me back up.

Part A.

The intent is to have that bundled up and that part A interim deliverable finished based on the feedback we received from you tonight and the commission tomorrow and back to the city by the end of January.

Therefore, then would be phase two or Part B planning services that would include uh three additional uh engagements with the public as the master plan is refined and finalized to collect additional feedback.

It also includes, as Brian mentioned, uh developing the operational model and pro forma for any amenities that the city would own, maintain, and operate, or if there is an opportunity for certain elements to be operated by uh private concessionaire, and then it would also include the overall cost magnitude and phasing implementation plan for what is proposed as part of the final master plan uh going forward.

All of that would be bundled up into the final three chapters of the master planning uh report.

Um the first three would be bundled up and delivered to the city by the end of January.

With that, we'd be happy to take any questions that uh any board members have on the information shared.

Okay, thank you very much.

We'll just start on this in with Director Neil Martin.

So when we first um set out to look at this property, there was studies done internally regarding flood mitigation.

Um did you guys do uh some flood mitigation studies yourself and to to a to validate what what we had said or what the city had said, and do you have documentation that shows that?

So I'll answer the the first question.

We coordinated extensively with city engineering and half associates that are designing the stormwater mitigation basins.

We spent about four months in the middle of 2025 as they were advancing the design of those basins, coordinating back and forth to get to the integrated design that we shared with you tonight in concept two and concept three with the wet basin.

And so that process uh has been interwoven with this master plan, which was I think the intent from the beginning.

And but if you have any other specific detail questions related to engineering, I know that Alan with uh half associates is here tonight as well.

Well, I just want to make sure that that I I understand.

I mean, if that's the central part of this whole thing is flood mitigation and and reducing flooding on the north side of the city.

If if we don't get the benefit out of that, this this project, I mean we could do all the amenities we ever wanted to do, but if there's no if we don't get significant flood mitigation, um then this this isn't this isn't gonna work.

So I want to see I want to see the data behind it.

Uh, where's my half guys?

Raise your hand.

I want to see the data behind it.

So and I'm not an engineer, so I want to be able to understand it and validate it and make sure that yeah, as we move forward with flood mitigation, and especially that being the number one goal of this project that we see that and we can have confidence going into it.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, I think once once I'm not gonna speak for the half team, but once they get to final design, there will be a stormwater manager report that will do just what you're asking.

Okay, yeah.

And I think I think we need to we need to see that kind of early on.

I don't know, I don't know if that's ready to go, but I think we as a board need to be able to see that and validate it and be able to ask questions sooner rather than later because this is key.

This is this is the project right here with that's that stormwater mitigation.

Yeah, and I I can I can tell you with confidence, concept one, concept two, and concept three all meet the hundred-year storm mitigation requirement for this project.

Okay.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Uh we'll go to Director Good and come this way.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, first I want to make a comment uh with regard to Director Martin's comment about um significant talking about flood mitigation on the north side.

You know, we as a board, new members and old, have discussed the flooding issues, particularly on the north side, May Branch town branch.

It's been a flooding issue for decades.

I've sat on this board and watched us do buyouts for different areas near Kincaid.

Um the city's done buyouts and other initiatives, Vienna.

You know, we've tried some things, a few small things, cleaning out pipes, uh detention ponds on the north side.

Regardless of how significant, if you want to put a definition on significant, any help to the north side, particularly during flooding that's been happening for decades, is going to be beneficial to the north side.

So we have to remember that.

So moving forward with this, I'm gonna ask you a question about the initial cost or yeah, the cost of option one, just option one.

Is there any cost to just option one?

I'm gonna turn to city engineering since they were the ones that are leading that that particular alternative.

So with any sort of cost, that comes at a slightly later time than we have now, but that is honestly the critical form that we know is important to you.

So half engineers is here, and they do uh Alan, do we have a scoping level cost for one level level one, two, and three for this?

How there, Alan Deaver, half associates.

I don't have any prices for um level the options two and three, but the your question regarding option one, our preliminary price estimates were between five and six million dollars.

Okay, thank you.

So it was stated earlier that uh options one, two, and three all address flood mitigation.

Um page 50 of what we had here, it said key themes.

Uh, and I guess the survey showed 81 percent uh voted highly for options two and three.

Yep, that's what it showed.

And uh page 52, uh the map takeaways, concepts two and three also scored the highest uh throughout the survey, and those that were there part of this event.

So in looking at the board, the board okay.

This is just me talking out loud now, particularly to the board.

The board's uh priority is flood mitigation.

The community as a whole that took part in this project scored higher on two and three.

You know, I know what we're here to do.

I know what we were voted to do.

Money is also an issue, but we also know what because we all voted on purchasing this property that we discussed it.

All these things don't have to take place all at once.

We don't have to do everything all at once.

Say that again.

Number one we do, number one we have to do all at once.

Flood medication.

Flood mitigation, correct?

I'm talking about addressing the community and public's input.

So I took some other notes.

So, oh yeah, I wanted to tell you a little history first.

And I know this is gonna be a long meeting all night, so you know, we're patient, you guys can be patient.

So here's a little history about growing up on the north side of Fort Smith.

I've been I was born and raised here.

You know, we had great times riding our bikes, playing in ponds, streams, even when it flooded, we enjoyed that.

But as I got older and was an adult, I saw how that flood and water damaged property, if not houses, yards, ditches, all of that.

It's one thing to absolutely have nothing to do growing up when people say there's nothing to do in Fort Smith, and then you hear it from your kids and the youth at the boys and girls' clubs, and then you want to do something about it because we want better for our kids than what we had.

I think we all can agree on that.

Of course, some of the arguments that I've heard don't match that, but I believe we all do want better for our kids and for the future for Fort Smith.

So we have to address these issues, not just all the have-to's, but we have to invest in some of the want-tos as well.

You know, we talked about the primary reason why we invest in parks, why people voted, the citizens voted to have taxes go to investments in parks.

Is because if you don't have any any money or anything else to do, you can go and enjoy a park.

There's plenty of options to do at parks.

So I don't know where we're gonna go as a whole addressing this.

The flood mitigation for me is a must, and I absolutely loved hearing from the citizens' input section.

You know, great numbers, great comments, because a lot of the opinions don't just come from this room or this board.

There are many factions of this community that never make it to these meetings for one reason or another.

But I guarantee you we all talk to a lot of these folks, and you guys talk to us as well, and we talked to you as well.

I mean, I'm in this community.

I do a lot of things going to different organizations, groups, individuals.

I'm listening to folks.

No, we don't want to just waste money where it's not needed, but I will stand on the fact that you know I've sat up here for too long and listened to all the excuses why flood mitigation hasn't happened significantly on the north side.

And if this project can help a little bit, I'm for it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, just a few things that are on my mind as I'm listening to everybody here.

I noticed the pictures, um, Mr.

Crawford had a lot of uh pictures of wet, you know, and then we're talking about dry.

Do we have an idea of how much to make the dry retention pond wet?

I mean, do we know that cost by chance or a ballpark?

You know, I think it's gonna be a consensus that we should do flood mitigation work.

I I can't imagine someone here saying they're not gonna do that.

But if even if if this is the case, if we are unanimous that we want to do that, how is there a thought about how much to make that one wet, but still pause on development?

But I feel like if you don't if they you don't make that choice on the front end, is there extra cost to go back later?

And that that would be my second part of this.

Is there an extra cost later?

And you know, people are saying, well, you should have told us when we were doing it, you could have saved X amount while we were here.

Uh could you speak to that for a second?

Yeah, absolutely.

I can.

It's a great question.

So that has been something that we have contemplated since this started to evolve, that there was a strong desire to want to have water upon a small lake on the property.

To answer your first question, no, the cost delta between the dry basin and the wet basin has not yet been developed because the design of the wet basin isn't nearly as far along as what the dry basin is.

If that's of really um great informative data, that could be something that we do include in the future part B.

Right now, the intent in that future part B master planning to finish is actually to refine the concept to something the community is moving, wanting to move forward with, then start applying magnitude of cost to the elements, which would include what you're asking about, which is to convert what could be built as a dry basin to a wet basin.

Yeah, I just think I'd like I'd like to know personally.

I'm just one person, uh, that as we come to voting on some matters to know what would it cost to go wet versus dry, and maybe it, hey, if if dry is all we can do at the time, then I don't want to hold this up.

But I think if we can think, yeah, but if there was this much more, you get this, or if you decide to do it later, this is you know, it's it's not gonna matter, or no, if you decide to do it later, it's gonna cost extra, and you should have thought about this ahead of time.

To me, that was sort of the benefit of doing not only the study with engineering but also parks in tandem was so that you guys can know how we don't get in way get in the way of our own feet as we walk through the process.

So I appreciate that.

The other one, a comment I have would be, you know, the highest elevation there, uh, you talked about the 14 acres, but it is sort of around a water tower.

I mean, and it's not the prettiest of water towers that we have in the city of Fort Smith.

And I've been a big advocate of washing towers, and I know we're washing towers, and we got in a discussion about that.

Um I think we'd I think we need to think through that.

I mean, if if we were gonna have developers, would they help us with that water tower?

Because I also know part of what we feel in Fianna Hills is uh my community I live in is we have a water tower, and if it's dirty, man, it's so large, you can see it from the interstate.

It's this beacon of hi, you haven't washed me in a while, and that's gonna be an ongoing thought.

So maybe I just want us to feel that because that I do think through that.

The uh hundred-year rain um for flooding and the benefit that we gain, how deep of mitigation work will that go into the city?

Do we have a like because you're talking about Kincaid Avenue?

Yes, which would be awesome.

But uh, you know, is there a way to sort of help me understand how much flood mitigation will this solve when you talk about a hundred-year rain?

Do we have an idea from like this area of town to this area?

So our biggest area of uh benefits is between the park and like park avenue Kincaid area, and then from that point we get so far downstream that there's too much water contributing that the effects are less noticeable.

Does it still have effects all the way to the river?

Yes, but they're far less noticeable.

How wide?

How wide uh east and west do you think?

It varies greatly depending on the location and the cross section.

Yeah, I mean, I echo Director Good's comments.

I mean, we need to we need to make sure that we take care of the whole of the city, especially places that maybe have been overlooked at times.

Um the other one I have a question is, and I don't even know who this question is for.

My final question is if you choose concept two, and there's access to grants.

I thought that was sort of the spirit of this was if we want to get access to like the Walton Foundation or other significant investment groups that are not the federal government but private investors.

My understanding was they need a professional plan with professional input and know that you're going to carry out something of magnitude that they're proud to put on their portfolio.

Um do we have an idea of how this could look?

Do we have an idea of a percentage of how much this project could benefit and access to grants?

You know, I mean, I don't want to say that you're going to get 100 percent funding.

I think that's probably naive.

But how much?

Could you speak to that?

The whole concept, and could you speak to what range do you think of a project could we get for grant funding?

Thank you.

Yeah, that's an excellent question.

I I I would not be able to informatively provide a range of where the grant funding could be yielded and to apply to this project, but I can tell you that the intent behind the the full master plan is to provide the information, the data, the illustrations, um, and the overall community support for what's being what would be articulated in that final master plan for the city to then be able to advocate to those various programs that you talked about, those various foundations and different funding opportunities that are that are well beyond and outside of anything that the city would fund on the public dollar.

And we've had tremendous success with other projects of magnitude like this, receiving large contributions from other foundations.

Brian could probably talk about a whole handful of even the case study projects that we shared with you tonight that are oftentimes funded through public-private partnerships, public-private, and sometimes even grants.

So that three-legged stool is oftentimes how projects of magnitude like this are achieved and oftentimes not done in one phase.

They're phased in over many years, sometimes even decades, uh, to build parks of this magnitude.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Director George Gassavits.

Yes, sir.

Um who contacted you all from the city about this study?

Who we put out a request for proposals.

Okay, who okay, who put out the request?

The Parks Department put out a request for proposals for the for master planning this property, and RDG responded to it.

Request for a proposal for the for the returning ponds or for master planning the parks amenities on this property and can ordination and coordination with the and what is the cost of that study going to be?

We've already contracted that.

That was there is a cost I don't remember.

Yes, it's already been done.

From the parks department fund.

The bo the board vote from the for the parks operating budget.

Okay.

Let me ask you this.

What would what is the what's the going to be the estimated cost to develop everything he talked about tonight?

That's what we would determine once the once there is direction on the final concept that the city wants to gravitate towards, that's when we'll start to identify cost magnitude of the development.

Which uh surely is gonna be in the millions.

Uh likely would be in the millions, yeah.

Does it not bother you is there another major project, five minutes away.

I can't speak to to Creekmore and other parks that are within the the area.

I can tell you that the opportunity for this project and the unique property that that it's on presents a lot of different experiences that don't exist other in other areas of the community.

Okay, Sarah, I have one question.

Thank you, sir.

You have an operations fund, right?

And then you have a uh the one eight tax of the uh capital gains fund?

Have have you has anybody ever taken money from one and put into the other for to shore up another show up one of the accounts of short that would not be permitted by those funds.

So no.

We can't back in whenever between the first of our sales tax 2012 to 2022, yes, we could use it for operations, and we did, but then whenever it went up for renewal in 2022, it was designated for just parks capital, so we can't use it for any operating costs.

Capital expenses only.

Yes.

Okay.

Sarah, you uh I hope you understand that you one of these days you're gonna be broke if we keep going like this.

That you can't we can't keep spending millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Unless you want to raise taxes again, and people aren't gonna do that.

I think the purpose of this master plan and why we wanted to engage.

I think we all understand the fiscal position we're in, and we're not advocating to build a park.

You know, whenever we first presented this master plan, I stood up here actually, it was right over there, and I said, I don't care if it's a park.

I don't care what it is as long as it's what the citizens want.

But now, after we've gone through this community engagement, I think that is the direction that the citizens want.

And in my role as the director of parks and even a public servant, it's my job to advocate for those citizens and present what I feel is in their best interest and what they've communicated.

But the other side of me is I know we can't afford this, but it's and I'll quote one of our park commissioners, Sam Hanna said it best at a meeting uh last month.

He goes, you know, we're not we all recognize we're not going to do this today, but it's planning for the future if we can go and develop this next year, two, three years down the road, but we need a direction, and that speaks exactly what Director Good spoke of.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Director Christina Savage.

Uh so my questions for administration.

I'm hoping you can provide some clarity because initially when we talked about this and we talked about the purchase of the property.

My understanding was that the city would buy the property, and then we were applying to a private foundation.

We were putting together this master plan for a private foundation for funding.

So I'm wondering have we applied and do we have any formal commitments from the foundation?

There's a combination of things.

Uh, when we initially contemplating purchasing this property, we talked about it both for parks and recreation amenities and for stormwater mitigation.

Uh but to the further part of your question, uh at one point there was a um an idea to consolidate a lot of uh parks and amenity and uh those types of projects into a big ask of a of a particular foundation.

That is that is not culminated, that has not happened.

Um it has not been submitted to anyone or assembled uh completely at this point.

I mean that is it be it it certainly could be in projects such as this.

I mean, in particular, the the if a master plan then is fully developed and some of the costs identified as as Director Savis asked about, then those types of things could be folded into that type of a basque.

And when a foundation or anyone who evaluates that type of ask looks at well, what would these dollars do?

Then a master plan that grows out of a project like this is something that we can then show them.

This is what we intend to do with this.

It's not speculative at that point.

These are specific projects, specific things that we intend to do with those dollars if we receive them.

So it needs to be more specific than what we've seen.

It it it does.

I mean, I mean, if if a concept as uh RDG has proposed is is determined to be their path forward, then we fully develop the estimated cost for projects and amenities to be that we could incrementally add to that to that property, or we could consolidate them into an ask of that of that magnitude and say this is what we intend to do.

So yeah, yes, I think it does.

I mean, I think we are in the middle of a process that would get us to a point where we could make a specific ask for this pro particular property.

Okay.

That's a little bit different than than I understood it as we've gone through this process.

My understanding was that uh the master plan that we we contracted for was what we needed to secure that funding or apply for that funding.

It's about half of it.

As as Scott showed us, there was the the four the four pieces that we're completing now, will have a deliverable, and then there's the the remaining pieces, which we have not contracted with them yet to do.

I mean initially we had a a uh consolidated proposal to do all of that work.

Um that would had a fairly large price tag, and we didn't think that we could afford that.

We scaled it back and did about we did about half of that.

And so we still have an obligation if we want to finish that, then we need to complete that work.

Well, has there been um any interest or opportunity outside of that private foundation for funding, maybe through the state?

There there has been some discussion with uh with representatives from the state about potential for funding.

Uh Sarah popped that out of the photo for her on that question.

Yes, so we did have a representative from both the state and the Walton Foundation come and tour the facility and kind of speak with us about that.

And I will say with those, they're really looking for something for us to have a water feature like fishing or something.

And through that work at the state level, it's the outdoor recreation grants program.

They recently upped that from a 250,000 dollar cap to you can ask for more up to 750,000 to a million dollars.

And the way they've restructured that grant program, they're looking to fund something more expensive than this, just these little pocket projects that they've done in the past.

So we kind of have that, and we've kind of put our foot in the door to get those and receive that.

And we think there is a good possibility, but we have to know what the plan is because that's one of the requirements whenever you submit the application for a project of this magnitude.

You have to have a master plan.

You have to show support from not only the citizens, but also city administration because that is a weight in their evaluation.

Okay, thank you, Sarah.

Thank you.

Direct Rigo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, you know, all of the options uh put in front of us tonight have that flood control and flood mitigation aspect to them, which we all acknowledge uh is important and a main priority, and the public shares that as well.

Um, as was stated here tonight, you know, that's going to be somewhere in the ballpark of five to six million dollars to just handle that flood mitigation uh component.

Uh and it looks very plain and serves that one function.

Uh you add that to the two point uh five or so million dollars that we spent to acquire the property, and you're looking at somewhere around eight million dollars spent to mitigate flooding, which is a noble purpose.

Uh I think, and um I don't think I'm saying anything too controversial or revelatory that there's not really going to be any private foundation or philanthropist or entity that's interested in helping us fund um basically a plain chain flood mitigation um project.

And so, you know, ever that's the baseline upon which over any amount of time things could be added on to or built on to, and I think we would be uh penny wise and pound foolish to completely shut off the opportunity for uh usage uh beyond simple basic flood mitigation on that property.

Uh and I would think we should even consider a like option 1.5, which is you know, I personally would like to see what would be the cost to have some um fairly um low maintenance uh bicycle accessible trails around the dry um flood mitigation options, and so I just we're in for a significant amount of money on this project, even to just do the basic flood mitigation, which is good and which is a noble purpose, but I think we would really be missing an opportunity in the future if we do anything to uh unduly close off options or proposals for the future uh to utilize more of that property in a wider way for the community.

Thank you.

Director Settle.

Uh thank you.

Uh Josh, could you go to option two, please?

Thank you.

I've got a couple of questions on option two.

First of all, Dre, you're 100% correct.

You're 100% right.

This is this is one long overdue to get the flooding taking care of north side of town.

I think this is something to do.

I I only got a couple of questions here.

The water feature and uh number four, a concern is safety for the public.

I I think it's a good idea, but how do we how do we make sure that people don't jump in the water?

You know, it's a floating island.

And I know I kind of get the idea of what you can do there, but uh any concerns about that when you when you propose this option?

That's it's it's a great question.

So we did have uh several uh meetings and engagement with public safety around water rescue and the need for that, because if we're going to promote people in kayaks, fishing, canoes, um that there needed to be the ability for there to be a rescue plan in place.

And near where that number three is is where um essentially the put in is proposed.

There'd like be a small floating dock system as well as uh not a boat ramp, but a but a sloped walk down to the water that emergency um services could come down into the water, get out onto the water and perform their fire rescue or their water rescue operations if needed.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

You know, and I look at the the project uh I I keep thinking a couple of things.

Oh, before I get there, I'll go get one with the question.

What is your plan to do with the option on the right-hand side when there's no water?

Is it gonna be open for trails?

Is it gonna be open for soccer fields?

Because when I go to Tulsa, I see uh flood mitigations and I see soccer fields in those areas.

Is that an option to do in that other side when there's no water?

Alan, do you want to speak to what the the bottom of that base and the purpose there of that?

Because I think that will answer some of your questions.

Okay, thank you.

There's no uh plans like that currently proposed.

Could it be done?

Sure, but um that's not currently what we're doing.

But that's something that's easy to do.

It's not gonna be a no, it's just we have to plan through that.

We would just have to plan for it and plan amenities.

Yes, you know, to the board of the public.

I this is I remember when this first came up, and I keep thinking the biking trails.

And you go up to Northwest Arkansas and you see what they're doing, they're they're putting mountain bike trails everywhere.

We have to remember we are in a race to improve our city.

We have to get more people are coming to our city.

We've got FMS projects happening, visitors are coming, many of these are needed.

And if we don't, we're gonna fall behind.

Companies need companies need workers and workers need to be coming here or coming here because there's stuff to do.

If we can't supply those workers, those jobs are gonna go somewhere else.

If you think I'm joking, I'm not.

There are open positions in this city that can't get filled because there's not enough workers.

We have to bring people in to their city.

They want amenities, they want things to do.

This park might take 20 years.

But having a park inside the city of Fort Smith in the center of the city, this to this to this option is amazing.

It's not gonna be done overnight.

Flood mitigation should be the first priority, no doubt about that.

But after that, it might take five years, ten years.

Having a plan allows us to apply for grants.

Some of them might want to put the water feature in, some of them might want to put the bike uh mountain biking in.

Let's make sure we we all understand that we have to bring visitors in, help pay for sales tax that which defers to the furs the off our the citizens of our city.

We want more citizens, people to come to our city, become our citizens, live in houses, pay taxes, and enjoy it here and go to and have a workable force.

Well, we don't want to look back 20 years from now and go, man, I wish we'd done that.

And we we're gonna go out.

We had an opportunity, but the board did at that time didn't do it.

I think a plan's good.

I'm good with two, three, I'm I think two's good, one and a half, I think is an option too.

Um, I I keep thinking about what Oklahoma City did, and they've got the adventure park, and now they're gonna have the Olympics there.

I go Northwest Arkansas, and I got biking, mountain biking capital of the area, I think, of the world, I think is up there.

We are in competition to get more people here.

And how do we improve our city is through parks and making our city better?

And that's our job.

That's what I look at.

My job is how do I make my city better so it improves the lives of my citizens of Fort Smith, but brings people here so that I can re diverse the sales tax base so more people come here to help pay for those things, police, fire, parks, sewer.

That's how we do it.

Because the more people come in here, less burden it on our citizens of Fort Smith.

So I think we got a plan.

Let's keep moving forward, but let's get the flood mitigation first and let's continue what we're doing.

Thank you.

Director Good.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Director Settle, for your comments.

Um, particularly about amenities.

You know, remember talking about some of these other park initiatives and and growing Fort Smith.

Some of the conversation was, you know, with competition with people competing on where to move to, because you know, a lot of folks can do their job remotely.

Well, not much anymore, not as much anymore, but a lot of people can.

But whether remote jobs or not, you know, people want things to do.

You know, people do move to towns because there are different amenities, you know, and different shopping places to go to.

But yeah, so thank you for your comment.

Uh my second uh comment is about Director Rigo's comment.

He spoke to um option number one just being a baseline, which he's absolutely correct.

You know, if we're looking for you know, more power for our book, you know, we have to look beyond the baseline.

Um I don't see any private investment coming towards a project just specified for basic flood mitigation.

Um ask you guys, I know many of you guys have been to Tulsa, the gathering place, right?

That was primarily you know private funding.

But have have we as a city asked them how they did their their project funding?

Don't think so.

I I think it would be a good idea that that we do at least ask.

Uh and I think that what we'll find also is it was alluded to a couple different times.

You know, if we move beyond option one and invest in our community, invest in Fort Smith and invest in our future, invest in our kids, you know, option two has to be part of that one and two option.

You know, we see it every year when we have nonprofit organizations asking for help.

This community, as Mayor McGill has said hundreds of times, this is the biggest caring area and giving that this man is seeing.

We take care of our own, and those folks that do have, they do reinvest.

They do donate, they do help.

They will do it with one and two, not just one.

So I'll put one or two.

Direct camp.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh just landing the plane on a question here for the five to six million dollar number that we're talking about.

Um can administration answer, are there dollars from flood mitigation that can be appropriated to this?

I mean, how much and uh how much of its general fund, how much can we talk about?

The stormwater piece is already figured as part of the um the capital improvement plan for streets, bridges, and associated drainage as far as the stormwater management.

Are those dollars available as soon as the soon as uh RDG and PROS consulting?

Well, we all we are already have half an associates under uh contract for design and the design work associated with the stormwater mitigation piece, and they're and that's why we're having them coordinate with RDG on this process because we don't want the two to conflict.

We want the two to complement each other.

So can we is it safe to say that by this year we'll be voting to expense the flood mitigation?

That I don't know the answer to that question, but we'll see how close we get.

But it is it is certainly in the in the plan and in the in progress.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions from the board?

Okay, if not, thank you very much.

We'll go to item number two.

Okay, item two is the annual compliance of Act 235 of 2015 to assemble and organize the governing body of the City of Fort Smith for 2026.

Although the city has already codified its municipal procedures and adopted an ordinance setting its meeting dates for 2026, this statute still requires us to discuss this topic in January.

Unless there are any board comments or questions, there's no further action needed.

Okay.

Any questions on this item?

Okay.

If not, we'll go to item three.

Item three is the annual review of the board best practices document.

The board adopted its board best practices document in 2014 and specified that it should be reviewed annually.

This document has been amended six times since its adoption, most recently as last year.

The updated document was provided in the board's agenda packet materials, and and I will defer to any questions or comments from the board at this time.

Director Christina just savage.

Um I have some uh edits I'd like to suggest on section 3.3.

I'd like to remove the last bullet point that says be mindful of limited resources and avoid requests for unnecessary information in recognition of the limitations of staff time and resources.

I feel like this document has been weaponized against the board with past administrators, and I should be able to request and receive any documentation that's necessary to do my job.

Um additionally on section four, I'd like to strengthen the language around avoiding the appearance of impropriety and add um add maybe another sentence or two that says something I know we'll have to run this by legal, but something similar to when the appearance of a conflict of interest exists, board members should disclose the nature of that interest or relationship on the record prior to participating in discussion.

So those are the edits I'm proposing, and I'd love to hear from my fellow board members on their thoughts.

Um I see no my comment would be I see no com conflict at all with the first one on the second one.

Could you speak more to it?

Um certainly, but what's your question?

Well, isn't there already the Arkansas Ethics Commission that has all those?

We fill out our our notices of things that we have to turn in annually.

I mean, don't isn't it already checked?

So this is referring to discussion.

So when someone abstains, um, they shouldn't participate in any discussion.

Um sometimes people do, but when we're talking about the appearance of a conflict of interest, that's not necessarily governed by the ethics commission.

Our our board best practices document should mirror the um the rules set forth by the ethics commission, but one thing we talk about is the appearance of a conflict of interest, and one thing I really worry about is the erosion of public trust, and that's an issue we have, and I think for uh board members to to be transparent on the front end and say I have I have a perceived conflict of interest, this is the relationship to that conflict.

I think that would go a long way towards healing that erosion of trust we've had with the public.

So um I guess at this point of if you would like to suggest that we uh place an item on the agenda for next week to uh or up an upcoming meeting.

I don't know about next week, but but to make those amendments.

Uh well I was trying to gauge if I had any support for those.

If not, I don't I don't know that it's uh prudent to continue the discussion.

Okay, okay, moving on.

Okay, thank you.

We need to take any action on that.

No, sir.

Thanks.

I don't I don't have any uh questions or additions.

I just wanted to uh point out and say publicly uh section five, and I wanted to read it aloud.

So to remind our board members and the public about section five code of conduct, practiceability and decorum and discussions and debate.

Difficult questions, tough challenges to a particular point of view, and criticism of of ideas and information are legitimate elements of a free democracy in action.

However, participants should make shouldn't make belligerent personal derogatory, slanderous, threatening, abusive, or disparaging comments, shouting or personal actions that could be construed as threatening will not be tolerated.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh we will go to um there's no other board action required on that.

Okay.

Item four is a discussion of funding for maintenance needs to Miss Laura's museum.

Specifically, the building's siding is in disrepair and the parking lot requires maintenance.

There were funds set in the 2025 budget for such repairs, which were not spent pending discussion of the city's future involvement with the facility.

At the board's direction, staff will include those funds and the carryover request for the 2026 budget, which will be presented to the board in mid to late February.

Staff will plan to address these maintenance needs in 2026.

The board asked that this item be placed on a study session in January.

I will defer at this point to questions or comments from the board.

Any comments or question uh director Neil Martin?

You recognize how much are we planning in carryovers and carry forwards?

The the total amount hasn't been determined yet.

I mean that's still something the the actual uh requests from departments are due to finance on Friday in terms of items that they are requesting for carryover.

Okay.

Just to remind the board, you know, our goal is a balanced budget in 26 and depending on those carry-forwards and carryovers, this included, um we start digging into that.

So I have I have concerns.

I have concerns.

Um we had already some items were were brought, and it wasn't significant amount of money, but already items were brought to the 2026 budget after we passed it.

We've got to be careful, we have to be very careful about how we proceed.

Not saying that what we do here related to this item, but we've got to be very careful.

We have to be very careful.

Thank you, Director Savage.

Um so I know that the roof was replaced due to hail damage.

Is the um the damage to the siding, was that from the same hail storm?

Different w is that not is the siding not covered?

Is that why it hasn't been replaced?

Angel, would you mind to speak to that?

The siding is actually damage from years and years and years of just wear and tear.

Okay.

Um the damage that you all are seeing right now is actually stuff that has occurred over the last three years that I've personally been there.

This damage is the reason I applied for the grant two years ago, because I knew that this was going to start happening.

Okay, so this was not hail damage, just the roof.

Just the roof, yes, and it was replaced in its entirety uh this this year in 2025.

Yeah, I knew I knew that was an ongoing issue with the roof, so that's taken care of.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

Right, you can thank you, Mayor.

Um, I did do a little look at this myself with a couple other contractors that I've asked that I respect in the community to look at it.

And uh, you know, there's pieces to this facility that are very unique, mainly the decorative teeth up at the top, if you will, you know, it's in good condition, it needs to be uh repainted while it's in good condition.

Obviously, the siding isn't, you know, their comment was are there limitations on you know, does this have to be wood?

Can it be concrete board?

Can it be a composite with wood material and plastic or does it have to go back as wood?

I think that's a question for us to have administration to look at the the numbers if you did some sort of uh unique kind of composite material.

You know, it's not a scary number to do the job, but they would only recommend doing the walls and not touch the dental work, you know, paint that and then do the walls.

Um obviously we need to do something, or I don't I mean I I'm kind of surprised it's lasted this long where we haven't talked about it with the siding missing.

Um but I don't see a large carry over.

Um, I'm gonna hold the price that I know of, but it wasn't a scary price when I heard it.

But that's if you can do that, or if is it you do wood, you know, how much of that could just be opened up in its troubled areas and then rescued with paint, you know.

But the problem with all of that would be if you if we aren't open to but to only wood, you know, you have to repaint that every so many years versus uh other materials that potentially could be available but give the same look and be a 30-year.

Um so I there's some thoughts I think administration to look into, and I guess a question in the spirit of Director Martin's comment for administration is when we talk about there was money in a budget last year to do this sort of scope of work, and I think it's in comparison with what I've seen if we were open to sort of long standing material.

We when we talk about a balanced budget, we are working a balanced budget for 26.

How much of these carryovers impact a balanced budget?

Or is it did we end in the black of 25 and we think we'll just be spending down dollars from that per se?

Could you speak to the balanced budget conversation of this?

Sure.

Well, in this particular concept, and this happens with with a lot of the line items.

I mean, we have dollars that are put into a line item anticipated to be spent in 2025.

For instance, the $310,000 that was uh put in the 25 budget for these types of improvements to Miss Laura's.

Those weren't spent.

We did project them to be spent, and so our ending fund balance as we projected it, did show that those dollars spent.

They weren't actually spent.

We still do have them available for carryover.

So in terms of our balance budget, it shouldn't impact that at all.

And for this in this particular instance, I mean, different different line items, there's different treatments for different different things.

But could you speak in that example that's it's a balance type?

Could you speak to the projected ending balance?

Are the numbers looking a little bit better than we thought as y'all have been working on the projected uh fund balance for the general fund?

Yes, I mean as it as it currently stands.

Of course, there is a lot of there was a lot of 2025 still yet to complete in terms of outstanding payments and invoices, those sorts of things.

And so that that work won't be done probably through March or into April when they start working on the on the audit.

But um but there is a a uh significant portion of unspent projected projected dollars that we that will contribute to the general fund reserve, and I think that's probably going, you know, we we budgeted I think a 31.8 percent general fund reserve, if I remember correctly, when we had the adopted budget, but then uh as it's as we've progressed closing out the year, starting up the new one, and those 25 expenses are winding down.

The we at this point are projecting around a 34 percent fund balance as it currently stands.

So as it stands knowing that, I I just you know, I think it's okay and from my seat at this uh dais with you all is to offer up an RFP and let administration figure out what is gonna be required for the historical part of this and open up an RFP to let companies whoever they may be bid to the work.

But I mean, what I've seen so far from my soft entry level look, it's not going to exceed the dollars that we would have already planned on spending on the Laura's house that didn't get spent.

So I can't guarantee that because I'm not a I'm not a contractor that's gonna do the work.

But if we open up an RFP with the parameters, and I think the question would be can we use some long year uh material, you know, 30 year look of material so that we're not sitting there having to keep up with the paint.

I kind of wonder about continued upkeep.

That's my seat of this.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Director Rigo and then directly good.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I agree with Director Kemp for the exact same reasons.

Thanks.

Director Good.

Thank you, Mayor.

So when I took the tour of Miss Laura's, um, I got a chance to talk to um Miss Angel and Tommy.

And uh I believe one of the things that you mentioned was we were talking about, yeah, if you don't mind come on up because I will ask you to if you have any information.

Uh didn't you say that that um the trim could not be painted, and you mentioned quite a bit of things.

So let me ask you.

So we're discussing numbers and and RFPs.

Have you talked to anyone uh about doing the work?

Any uh anyone and what's that look like?

And since you already have you're shaking your head, do we possibly not need to look further than what you're doing since you know there's already been communication?

So can you talk to those things?

Yeah.

So in sorry that was loud.

Um in 2025 this year, we actually opened up two separate RFPs where we have asked companies to come and bid.

Um we changed the scope of the project to make it um you know not as extreme.

Um the reality is the dental work and all of the molding needs to be replaced.

It has significant damage, and it's been by patching um over the years, and so where things like caulking have been used and repainted so that we can't see the damage, right?

Um, and so there has been extensive amounts of that type of thing, and so we have huge holes where we may have just been able to have replaced it before.

So with those two RFPs, we've had multiple companies who have come and bid and have directly stated that they are not willing to bid again because we we opened it up twice, they spent money, they lost money, and we're not awarded a contract.

Um I know that Joshua Robertson and Aaron have uh scoded in have gone out and actually contacted companies directly to try to get them to come just give us a a quote.

What would it cost to just do the siding, the molding, the parking lot?

Um and so we do have two quotes because those are the only people that showed up.

Um now I do have some private citizens that have come forward who have asked us whether or not we would be willing to take a couple of other quotes.

Of course I said yes.

Um so we do have two other companies that are willing to come give us a quote right now.

The quote that we have is 109,000.

It's from Russell Exterior.

It's out there, we have that.

We also have a quote for 123,000 to fix the parking lot.

Um does that answer your question?

Yeah, it does that does answer my question.

But while you're up here, you there's been conversation about trying to get funding a grant uh prior.

You know, you just mentioned that you know you had two RFPs and folks had had given you bids, so the information has been out there for what we're looking for.

What happened with that pro with what happened with that process process that that funding process that from the grant?

Uh so with the grant, um, I think uh you know, Jeff had mentioned at the the last meeting that um the preservation easement um that that he felt like it was too restrictive, which it is, and so to speak to your your point, Director Kemp, is that um through the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, we do have limitations on what can be done.

Um so the fact that we don't have that preservation easement in place currently does allow us to make some changes.

Now it could affect us getting grants in the future.

So we want to be mindful of that.

Um the wood that's on the exterior of the building now is cedar, which has held up for 38 years, so um, and I think it's had to be repainted once.

So we do know that for sure.

Um we could go through things like that.

I'm sorry, I feel like I derailed on the answer to your question.

No, I'm not sure.

You mentioned exactly what it was because it did have something to do with the uh uh Arkansas preservation.

Um the the money that we received from them we uh sent back or ref refused.

Um and so I it's the only grant that the city is eligible for with historic property.

Um so there's not another one that we can apply for.

Director Kemp.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so uh Miss Angel, uh I guess the question would be you're telling me that bid that you have for the 109 includes the siding and new dental work.

Yes, all of the molding.

That's a better price than I have, and I like that.

Okay.

I just want to give you a point on whether throwing up there.

So I mean if they had $300,000 in their last fiscal budget that didn't get spent and they have a budget a bid or a scope of work that can be completed to seal the building for 109,000.

I mean, I think that's where we are.

Uh you know, to tip my hat more though, I would say I the thing I want I take forward from the budget hearing, and I'm hopeful of is down the road you guys looking to build this independency from the city budget.

So, you know, I I think ultimately I understand that that was a shocker, and thank you for making adjustments during the budgeting process to finding ways to cut some corners on the budget, but I think downstream it's doing that.

However, I am favorable that if it's a facility that we have ownership of, you know, leaving leaving it open to water water running into the siding of the building is only going to further cost us money.

And so I don't know what we need to do, but I don't want to make I want to make sure that this is not something that we take too long to do if we know we already are gonna go with with you and with administration, y'all can work this out.

If we know we're gonna go with something like that price and that bid and they still honor that price, and they have that scope of work in view, I think that's a good price.

I think the catch will just be whether or not you all still want us to go through with the RFP and ask them to bid that way, or um what you all you know, what that process looks like.

Okay, thank you.

Any more questions?

Yeah, yes.

Okay.

Anything else?

Okay.

If not, we will go to item number six.

I'm sorry, item five with item five.

Items five and six actually relate to two consent decree projects that were originally presented for contract approval at the November 4th regular meeting, but deferred by the board pending discussion at tonight's January 13th study session.

In addition to staff from the engineering department, the design engineer is also present this evening.

Item five is a discussion of a construction contract and associated engineering services agreement related to a 2016 SSA remedial measures sub basin P008 project number 17-13.

The November discussion centered on the overall size of the project scope and the fact that the low bid of 17.7 million dollars was 60 percent above the engineer's estimate of 11 million dollars for this work.

In deference to the board's comments, the engineering department proposes to reject the original bid and repackage this project into two separate projects to be rebid.

Mr.

Todd Mitke is uh direct our director of engineering, it is here to uh may have any additional comments or entertaining questions from the board.

Okay.

I have a comment.

So Todd, I know you just got here, you've been here two weeks, right?

Week and a half, yeah.

Okay.

So I know that this came to the board along with 80 some odd million dollars worth of projects.

Um looking at this, it's just it was just off.

It was off.

I mean, to be um 60 percent and sixty percent and um seventy-five percent over engineering estimate, it is something that should have triggered something in somebody somewhere.

So, what I want to say to everybody here is we are all stewards of the citizens of Fort Smith money.

And when we see something like this, things should start to go off.

I I'm I'm my my guess would be this shouldn't even have made it to the board.

I know that wasn't your deal, but this shouldn't have even made it to the board, and we should have taken a step back at that point.

So everybody involved here has to be mindful of the city.

I know we've got hundreds of millions of dollars in bond proceeds to be able to do this work, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't make sure that we have uh that every bid that goes out is in line and uh uh goes according to what our engineering estimate is.

So that's that's just my comment.

It's my responsibility, it's your responsibility.

Hawkins, we're responsible, it's everybody's responsibility.

So I'm not pointing any fingers at anybody, but that's that's what I want to say.

We're all stewards of this money.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh my question is uh can you go to page 41, Josh?

Yeah.

You know, the we we originally saw this, we thought about breaking this up into two sections, and as I look at it more, does that make it more sense to maybe break them to three sections?

Can K North, Kincaid to Free Ferry, and then the Free Ferry South area.

Is that I mean I'm I'll leave it up to you guys to look at it, but I I would does it breaking up the smaller projects potentially give us a better cost at the end of the day.

The way we have 1713 proposed to be broken up is approximately along North 31st Street, starting at Dodson and then uh at the southwest course portion or the south portion and then at L North L Street at the north portion.

So it's not a perfect straight line, and I don't believe there is a uh display that shows this exactly.

Actually, there is on page 34.

If we can go back to that.

But I believe that in two projects, this could be effectively bid and have a little bit more competitive in bidding environment for a local contractor.

Three is we can look at that as well, but I I think with you're going east and west versus north and south.

Well, the cutoff would be north and south, but yeah, the the projects to the east would be uh roughly you know similar bid items and amounts.

All right to Savage.

When are we planning to put these out for bid?

Because I feel like part of the problem that we saw was we've maxed out our local capacity, then we were getting these really high bids from out of state contractors.

You know, when we looked at this um this money coming in, about 50 million years, what was prescribed, and then and then move on to other projects.

So we're not getting in a hurry to uh put these out for bid and get those high bids again because it seems like the local capacity is probably still maxed out.

Not necessarily, but in answer to your first question, it'll take 90 to 120 days to get the re-engineering and to split the projects up.

And then I'm gonna propose to put those out to bid in separate packages, not all at once.

Because one of the the issues with putting eight to nine projects out within a three-week period was we had our local bidders almost bidding against themselves in the fact that with the uncertainty if they got the projects earlier in the series, they wouldn't know how much capacity they had for the projects later in the series.

So with this, and especially going into four projects rather than two, we have better bid bonding capacity in the local local contractor community, and there may be still some outside state uh out of state contractors that want to bid, and as the director, I'm all for as much competition as humanly possible.

So just because they're out of state doesn't mean they're bad, but it's when these projects are just so large, it's hard for that local bid bonding capacity if they already have a few other projects.

Is that something you want to do differently?

I know I know you're new here.

Is that something you want to do differently going forward?

Because we've seen that on my time in the board where we've seen some of these big huge projects that were kind of bundled together, then we go in and break them up and actually end up with a better price.

That is something I want to look at project by project.

You can't always do that, especially with let's say a wastewater treatment plant type project, it has to be big because you don't want a million different contractors jumping all over each other for four different phases necessarily.

But one good thing about the consent decree is that we have that power for in that larger type of project, like with the wastewater treatment plant, we have that power to keep it in one phase.

In Paris, we had a wastewater treatment plant in two different phases and two different contractors got it.

They're both doing a great job so far, but keeping it one project would have been nice in the way in the fact that they wouldn't have had to share staging areas and and uh been two different contractors.

Okay, thank you for your time.

Any other comments or questions, Director Neil Martin?

Director Kat Savus was kind of hitting on it as well.

I think we uh we ought to take what we learned in this uh tranche of projects and apply that going forward in terms of we want to make sure uh and I I guess I kind of thought when we originally gonna bid these out, we're gonna do 50 million dollars a year and do it like that.

And and and uh I just want to make sure that we we don't get ourselves in this situation again in two years when we issue another 100 million dollars that we have been spaced out enough that our local contractors can do it and we don't get into a situation where somebody's 60 or 75 percent over engineering estimate because we our our folks have bid themselves out.

So just just to add to that to your point, I was surprised this made it to the board.

Yep.

So if you know we need to think about going forward uh some sort of fail-safe or or uh something to put that in check before it dies.

Thank you for that feedback.

I'll keep that in mind as we go forward.

Thank you.

Any other questions are on the side?

Okay.

I item six.

Have we have we covered that one uh sufficiently?

I mean it was the same type of issue.

Uh item six is a construction discussion of a construction contract associated with engineering services agreement related to a different um consent degree project.

Same same issue every same issue.

Okay.

Moving along?

Okay, okay.

Um thanks, Todd.

Uh, just are we gonna split this into somewhere that we do on split this in half?

Is that what you're gonna do?

Okay.

Just I didn't see on the map which way they were gonna split it, so I was trying to understand.

This one splits approximately uh north and south of Midland.

Okay.

So we have roughly pretty equal quantities for uh north and south on the line segments for the sanitary sewer and mainholes.

Okay, thank you.

Good.

Okay, thank you, Todd.

All right, item seven is discussion of a proposed lease agreement with Sebastian County regarding Parrot Island Water Park.

This discussion was placed on tonight's study session agenda at the direction of the board.

At issue is the arrangement in place by a 2020 by a 2012 agreement with Sebastian County, where the city and county agreed to share responsibility for the water park on a 50-50 basis, including the net cost of water park operations.

Sebastian County has proposed, although the offer is technically expired, to lease its share of the park ownership to the city, thereby allowing the city sole discretion over management and operation of the facility.

Absent this type of arrangement, Sebastian County has expressed opposition to sharing 50-50 responsibility for operating expenses related to a water slide expansion that the county expressly opposed.

Also, regarding regarding the completed operating seasons at the park, the city board has discussed conducting an audit of water park operations.

Some operational concerns have been expressed, and with the advent of a new management agreement and potentially a new vendor, an audit of operations and procedures is appropriate.

This item was discussed at the audit advisory committee meeting last week, and at this time I'll defer to uh internal auditor Amanda Strange and Chair of the Audit Advisory Committee Committee, Dina Enfeld for comments on that process.

Thank you.

This is my first time in front of you at a board meeting.

Um so I do want to give an update on the discussions that we had at the audit committee.

Um there were several of us present, so the audit advisory committee as well as our external auditors uh from Forest Mazars and some members of management.

Um we had a pretty lengthy discussion.

We got into a lot of details in that committee meeting, and I would like to remind everybody that they can listen to that discussion if they would like.

That audio recording is on the city's website if you go look for that.

So after that discussion, we came to a consensus that the uh best approach at this point would be to have um an agreed upon procedures engagement, an AUP.

And what that will allow to do is um really customize procedures so rather than a standard financial statement audit, we can um have more flexibility to really get those procedures aimed at what the concerns are for the water park.

It is also much more cost effective.

It is the most cost-effective option that we have.

Additionally, it's the fastest option that we have.

So from a time effectiveness standpoint, it will get you that information faster.

Uh the goal of those procedures would be provide transparency.

Uh and also to provide information to the board to help you make those decisions that you're you're gonna be making soon.

Current status is we're developing those procedures, um, and so that's uh collaboration of management being internal audit, finance, city administrators, as well as the uh audit advisory committee and the board members.

Uh once we have those procedures written, we'll provide those to the external auditors, and they'll develop a cost of how much doing those procedures would be.

Then we would come back to another study session, the next available study session, and provide that information to the board, and then have it be ready for the next board meeting after that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any questions?

So you're saying we're we're gonna do the in-house audit ourselves?

City?

We we will develop the procedures that we will then direct our external auditor to perform those procedures.

External you meaning outside the outside the city.

Yes.

And who would the and then the board would have to choose that that auditor?

Or that company?

The the estimate that we'll be getting are is our current external auditors for the city.

So the annual audit that the city gets, that's who that cost estimate will come from.

Who is it now?

Who do we use it now?

Four of us Mazars.

Still?

Yeah.

I mean, we've been using them for a number of years.

To do our financial audit, our yearly uh uh act at act for uh annual finance I can't remember what that what it stands for.

But they've been doing the ACT for four uh a number of years.

They were another company name, and then now they've they're four of us Mazars.

Okay, do you see a need for a forensic audit versus a regular audit?

I think these agreed upon procedures can address some of those concerns.

I think that this doesn't rule out further um activities, a full financial statement audit or forensic audit.

I think that these procedures we can target them to identify what we have concerns about, they will uncover concerns or they might confirm that everything is done correctly.

Okay, so you you can you you'll be able to identify fraud in other words, misuse of misuse of uh funds.

If any of those things come up in those procedures, they will be reported on and brought to the board.

What if they're criminal in nature?

At that point, we would have to consider further actions at that point.

I think it would get more into a legal matter.

Okay, thank you.

Director Christina Savage.

So, you know, we talked about this at the audit committee meeting in one of the initially I wanted a full financial audit.

So one of the reasons that I was comfortable with moving forward with this is we can get into it quickly, and it doesn't prohibit us from going further down the road when we see a need for it with the finances.

The financial documentation we've been provided by the park is limited.

If it's a snapshot, I want to see the full picture.

I also I want to understand how our revenues generated, where our costs incurred.

I want to better understand the maintenance practices, particularly around winterization and deferred maintenance.

Uh I don't know if we discussed that the other night, so I did want to make you aware that those are items I would like to um I'd like to have included in the audit because these have a direct impact on the long-term cause.

So all that being said, without having an audit complete, I think we are premature in moving forward with the discussion about taking over control of the park without first seeing the results of this audit.

Thank you.

Director Neil Martin.

I'd like to hear from uh Miss Infield, who is uh citizen, or she's actually the chairman of the audit committee and and a citizen.

So Ms.

Infield, are I mean what are your thoughts in terms of us moving forward with this?

And I I get it wrong every day, a UAP versus you know, uh financial audit, those kind of things.

In your professional opinion, doing this and kind of some of the things that you heard from the audit committee.

What do you what are your thoughts on moving forward in this direction?

So I think the agreed upon procedures, the AUP is you know, just a snapshot, like you like Director Cassaves said, we have a kind of a snapshot and some pieces of information.

So a financial statement audit, we would have to come in, and the end result would be to prepare a financial statement.

And while that may be down the road, what we end up needing right now, based upon the discussions and the concerns, we need to know specifically answers to some specific questions.

You know, how are cash receipts being handled, how are disbursements being handled, you know, what are maintenance items and things like that.

And I think the agreed upon procedures because as Amanda said, we can specify what we want them to do, what we want the external auditors to look at, and they go and do that testing and report back exactly what they found.

If there is not support for things or things aren't being handled the way that our procedures are lined out, all that will be reported.

It's a very cost effective audit, and it's a very, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's very timely because once the information is provided, you go through the procedures and it either happened or it didn't happen, and that gets reported.

And so to me, this is a starting point to get us the answers that we need and want as quickly as possible, and in a format and being able to tailor those procedures to exactly what our concerns are.

So I I think that there are there's been a lot of concerns about uh Parrot Island and you know it's there's a whole whole bunch of things surrounding it.

But do you think from a from your professional standpoint, if we do the agreed upon procedures audit properly, that you would have a good feeling that the parks being run appropriately according to you know best practices, those kinds of things.

Would this give you that information?

Yes, I think it would because we're gonna with the procedures that are specified, we're going to know did it happen or did it not happen?

Is what we're saying is being done, are we finding that?

So if we find that things are not, or there's areas that are not, maybe everything, if we've got 10 procedures and all their nine are fine, but one we have an issue with, then we can tailor and specify we have to have improvement in this area, or we need more reporting in this area, or we need to change some things in a specific area.

So again, I do think that that's a great starting point to having the information and being able to then modify procedures, modify oversight, things like that to go forward.

Okay.

I just want to make sure that once we move forward with this, that the public uh us and the public are satisfied and have a can have a reasonable uh expectation of that things are being run properly at the at the what the water park, uh receipts are being accounted for, uh you know, all those different things.

Money's money's being accounted for appropriately.

So I just want to make you there's really that was the question is the in your professional opinion.

Do you think that would work?

Um I I do believe that uh Ms.

Strange, you had had already started putting together some of these.

I don't know if you call them controls or you or you just call I guess they're procedures.

So you've started putting that together, and I think you've shared that with the the board, or have you shared that with the board and the audit committee?

The board and the audit committee.

So we we have it in an email that that initial draft.

Yes.

Can we add to that?

I mean, if there's something there, like Director Cratzavis had a couple things.

Can we can we add it to that and and and include that as a part of the information?

Absolutely.

And you don't have to put it in the same, if you read that language, it's very technical, which is required for those procedures.

You don't have to worry about how getting that technicality.

I can help with that wording.

Okay.

So I would I would encourage all the board to go back and look at Mrs.

Strange's document that she sent us and you know, see if that that meets your expectations or if there's something missing, and then work with her to get that on there.

I want to make sure that when that comes when this thing come back to us, if one of us has got a question that does not get answered, I that's that's not success.

So I want to make sure that we've got all of those things in there.

So I encourage everybody to do that, and uh and let's let's make sure that we get to the end of this and we're we're satisfied.

Okay.

I was just gonna have one comment on that.

Um she did send the email out that had the starting point of the procedures.

I read those and I sent her an email today with some additional things I might recommend after reading that.

I just sent it to her.

That was the request that you know she would compile those, but I'm happy to send that to the full board if you'd like, just as you're reading through it.

I think what might be what might be helpful is uh Amanda, you just kind of combine all these things together and then give us another you know, another uh a draft of it after after we take in Ms.

Infields and other folks on the audit committee, their suggestions.

Definitely can do that.

Thank you.

Uh we have a couple more board members, Director Kemp and then Director Rico.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I appreciate uh the good I really enjoyed the discussion we're talking about, and I want to say two things.

One on the side of the audit, uh I am encouraged to hear about this AE approach, looking for procedures that are agreed upon.

You know, we're being a little uh generic, and I want to be specific on a few things that that do concern me.

Unpaid invoices from 2024.

You know, if we show a profit for 2024, it needs to be after all bills were paid.

We paid bills in 2025 that should have been paid in 2024.

Procedures for more real-time reports.

Um I think we, you know, if you wait till 90 days after the close of season, it's too late to take actions that could be corrective.

I want to be proactive.

And then any sort of delayed payments, you know, the procedures for when services are invoices, how they're paid, those things I think will bring real validity and meat to discussion.

I don't sense that there is at least at this look.

I don't know if there's really any sort of wild embezzlement or anything out there.

I just think it's more about a lack of healthy procedures.

And I think that this is a great approach to target in on it, and I have concerns to that.

The second part of it, um just addressing just the the item seven review proposed lease agreement with Sebastian County regarding Parrot Island Water Park, I think deserves an answer uh from the board.

Um for me, I'll speak my opinion on it.

Um, you know, I don't think you can get into such a big project together, and then one part of this arrangement just steps away.

Uh, you know, I can welcome the idea that maybe they need to go a different direction, if that's what they think they need to do related to whatever obligations that the county has.

But I think it needs to be either a buyout in terms of dollars, real-time dollars, that factors in a uh look of what would the future demolition of the park cost, at least to what's been built prior to the slides, being 50-50, not 100% the city.

Um there were couplings that needed to be repaired that didn't get fully repaired because we said we did the expensive ones first.

Those other ones, that we know is going to be out there in the future.

There needs to be an evaluation of that.

That needs to be a 50-50 agreement.

And then, you know, I'd like to think that this water park will never have a loss again.

Hopefully, we get on top of this and don't get in our way, but you know, conceivably between here and 2032, maybe there's one summer that has 50 rain days.

Okay, well then we can estimate that a loss has been about 150,000 if if you factor a couple of those.

Do I think that they'll like that idea?

Uh probably not.

And uh my thought is also that where I'm at would be then you could agree to those terms on paper.

In other words, you don't have to provide real-time dollars, but you provide real-time commitment if we need your commitment to fulfill those things.

Um, in other words, if you don't want to provide real-time dollars today, give me the real-time commitment that you'll be there for us for what we did build together.

The community voted for this, you know.

The thing was on the onset, people like Parrot Island.

It has a lot of visitors compared to a lot of things we have in our town, even in the short time it's open.

Um, I think to say that because we bought slides, you know, you we need to restructure the entire agreement.

I well, I mean, there was gonna be expansion in the future anyways.

I mean, at some point, I doubt we decided to stop the water park at this point and no further.

So I think, you know, is there an opportunity to communicate with them?

I I would say for me, I'm all I I would like to see administration go back with a counter, and that's what I wanted to convey the night that this was on the agenda, that that was a little too realistic, and there's a little language in there that was like we may consider future parking.

That needs to be tuned up to we would make every effort to accommodate.

Because the future parking for the water park will also maybe help the soccer field or other amenities out there at the park.

So I think that there needs to be really tight language with how they would help us.

But as it stands today, as it was written, I would have proposed that administration redline it and send it back to them for a further discussion, but I don't find that those terms are agreeable yet.

Thank you.

Director Rego.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, first, as it relates to the audit stuff, I want to thank uh Miss Strange uh for her work um on the agreed upon procedures and echo what Director Martin said about encouraging us to to make sure we read this and see this.

The email was from January the 9th, um, you know, five pages, you know, question one A through I, two, three, A through C, four, A through D, D has three subsections, five, A through D, D has three subsections, six A B, seven AC, A, B, C, D, D has three subsections, eight, uh, subsections A and B.

So thank you for your hard work on it.

And thanks as well to uh board members and members of the public who serve uh on the audit committee.

I know you all take that very seriously and you put in a lot of work.

Uh as it relates to item seven, I have a uh couple questions and some comments there.

Um the current uh Jeff, I guess this question is for you, uh the current agreement that's in force, the 50-50 agreement, when does that expire?

Is it 20?

Uh it was a 20-year agreement, so 2032.

2032.

Okay.

Just confirming that.

So for the sake of the conversation here tonight, and and anybody can answer if anyone has an answer.

I'm not trying to put any particular person on the spot, but for the sake of the discussion, what is the because I think it doesn't take much to see or or contemplate where risk comes in, but what's the benefit or the potential benefit of the city being the 100% owner-operator versus the arrangement that we have now?

I'd be happy to answer that if you don't mind, because I'm the one who brought this up.

Um you got to look at this as we have an opportunity to improve revenues by ourselves without the county.

I I please I'm I'm asking to speak.

I've been very quiet here and listening.

Just as George Cassavis did about 10 years ago, he said, why don't we put beer and wine out the at the convention center?

We can't do that with a joint.

We can by ourselves.

And that's what this is all about.

There are companies that want to have that out there.

There are people that go out there that want to do that.

That will increase revenues, which means we don't have a loss anymore, which helps our maintenance funds, which means all the stuff that we've been spending money on goes away because that will increase revenues with more visitors with the slides and that amenity, and I've spoken publicly about that option.

That gives us an opportunity to increase revenues significantly increase revenues.

If you go look around the United States, Walt Disney World does it, Cedar Park, Six Flags does it, Universal does it.

All mostly all water parks do it in this day and age.

You go down to Epic Waters, they're they got a place right in front of the floor rider, and people sit there and do that.

So that's what I look at as just as George some uh uh said we should do at the convention center years ago, which we did at his recommendation.

This is where I think we should go with this in the long term because what you're gonna have is what happens if you do have those issues or have a maintenance fund.

The city and county have got to go 50-50, but the county will not do that.

They've already said they're not go that way.

Well, I told them if they put a clause in that you know, option that prohibits to have that option for the future, it's a non-starter for me.

I want to be able to give the park enough options and revenue enhancements that they can make a lot of money, put a lot of money in the bank back for future uh maintenance and issues, and that way the future boards don't have that worry about hey, are we gonna fund this or not?

Well, I I appreciate that um conversation and that potential around that.

Is it fair to say that that's sort of the main offering or potential amenity that the county is opposed to doing?

There are some members of the county that oppose that, yes.

I'm not gonna say they don't.

But I also know that there was uh 11 to 2 vote that said, hey, we'd like to hand those off to you guys because they they believe that long term this would be the viability of the park.

Well, I appreciate that uh additional context and and certainly um where I'm at, you know, there would need to be, and I'm not saying what you brought up is in and of itself not one.

I think we just do need to be very uh deliberate and thoughtful um because you really do need a compelling reason, uh a very compelling reason to release the county from a you know obligation that they have, you know, until 2032.

Um and so that's just something we need to be thoughtful about.

But Director Settle, I do appreciate that context.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Director Hood, and then Director Christina for Savage, and then Director Neil Martin.

Thank you, Mayor.

First, let me um thank um Miss Strange and Miss Enville for being here tonight.

Um I just want to speak up and show my support of um the developing procedures.

You know, I was part of the um the committee, and we had a very long, long three-hour meeting that night.

Um, and and the auditors, you know, put in a lot of time.

And uh representative from Forbus was actually very informative as well.

So thank you guys for your input.

Um Director uh Settle, thank you for your comments on um the the financial part of um possibly selling alcohol.

But um Director Rigo, um Director Kemp actually said something about future expansion.

I believe it was you.

Uh we met at Ben Garren, and that was part of the initial um concept of putting money aside for the expansion of the park uh and in amenities and in uh the space needed and possibly how it was going to be used.

So that's just been a part of the plan.

And in that discussion, you know, we talked about bad weather and possibly off seasons where the park didn't make its money.

So this is part of it.

I totally understand, you know, why certain members of this board uh want an audit, and I'm and I'm really good with that.

You know, the the more conversation, the information we have before us, the better.

You know, let's I mean, if there are any folks that think there's some um uh anything illegal going on, uh any kind of policy schemes or whatever going on, you know, let's let's get that flushed out.

But if there's not, then let's you know, shake our hands and roll up our sleeves and move forward.

Um that's it.

Oh yeah, that's it.

Oh, well no, no, I was gonna speak a little bit more to what you what what Director Settle said about um you know possible revenues.

You know, that actually was another part of you know me wanting to further discussion so we can actually have these discussions as a group and see what information is out there.

I know I've attended a couple of county uh meetings, and remember when we first went into the agreement, the agreement was that the county would pay half the 2.1 the city would pay 2.1.

In the process, you know, financial things come up with with both the county and the city.

You know, but here we are, you know, and and I and I absolutely liked the idea of growing the park uh in such a way that the dark water and adult swim nights would have an opportunity to have real adult features at night that would bring in that extra revenue.

For one, you know, we're talking about cabana expansions, having cabanas.

Could you picture picture having a cabana?

Seven, eight o'clock at night, having a little drink, just alcohol, just adults out there at the water park.

You know, you know, I'm sorry, give me a couple of margaritas, let me chill by some fire, you know.

I mean, it it's a revenue generating possibility.

And again, all of this is about seeing the future of Fort Smith and what we want.

Is it possible?

Is it possible?

Is it possible?

Savage.

So, Jeff, we have an agreement with the county.

We have a contract that goes through 2032.

Does the fact that the city bought the slides without the county open the door to the county being able to break the contract?

I can't answer that definitively.

I don't know.

I don't I don't believe that it does.

I I don't believe that it does either.

So we're absolving them of their responsibility.

Uh I I'm very concerned about potential and ongoing maintenance costs.

We've already had issues with some of those cast iron pipes.

Um from what I hear, there's more of those that are going to be a larger expense going forward and may shut part of the part down uh for the upcoming season.

Um I I understand where Director Settle is coming from with the beer and wine.

I would say uh the concession business is something I know about.

I've done it for a long time.

And looking at the financial reports they've provided us, their concessions aren't as profitable as they should be.

They're spending about 300,000, it looks like to take in 400,000.

I mean, concessions are a high markup item, and they should be making three, four or five times uh what they've got into it.

I mean, the uh nachos, you put them in a bow that costs about 50 cents, you sell them for five dollars or five dollars and fifty cents.

Uh so that's something that I'd like to address um in the audit to look at those concessions and see why they're not profitable.

I mean, also with with uh with alcohol, you know, I think the convention center is a bit of a false equivalency because those events are typically about two hours long.

Uh with Parrot Island, people are there for multiple hours throughout the day, they're in the sun, alcohol hits differently.

There'd have to be some sort of limit, uh kind of like they do at Chuck E.

Cheese, you can get a beer and then you wait so long, then you can get another beer and then you're cut off.

Uh so I would imagine there would have to be some sort of limit placed on that, probably a two-drink limit.

Um so I I don't know that that's going to open the door for profitability like we think it will.

Thank you.

Uh Director Neil Martin.

I do want to see the dollars around uh alcohol sales if that's something that is if we're basing the decision on.

I I that's the primary reason we're making basing the decision.

I need to see the numbers and the estimates associated with that.

Um to that point, or to I think Director Kemp's point, that was uh I think what he had said was very similar to what I said.

There needs to be some kind of buyout according uh with this, whether that's a million, whether that's two million dollars.

Um not all paid out at once.

We can defer that over to a period of time, maybe half a million dollars up front and a few hundred thousand dollars um the remain uh the remaining years till we get to whatever that threshold is.

If it's two million dollars, um that allows us to be able to have a an amenity that we're not sure if the aging, I mean we we've seen some aging issues uh that would allow uh us to be able to have some dollars from the county to be able to address some of those things.

So I want to I would like to see that.

Um I would like to see um uh section four.

Um I don't want uh I want to make county approval of expansions not unreasonably unreasonably upheld if the city's funding it.

So right now that that language is they'll consider it, they shall consider it or should consider.

I don't like that at all.

Um I I want the city to be able to not be if we want to expand, if we wanted to expand it at some point in the future, um I don't want the county being the one that tells us that we can and can't do it.

And then finally, on on section 10.

If the facility ceases operations or the city terminates, uh the county can only take ownership if it reimburses the city for book value or appraised fair market value of all city funded improvements minus depreciation.

So I want to make sure that uh that that happens as well.

I'm not I I'm not saying that I'm voting for this, but I want to make sure that if this gets passed, that the city is protected and the city has some things in there that protects us because at that point we will be the so sole owner.

Um I want to make sure that we're that we're protected.

Again, I'm not I I'm not saying I'm I'm voting for it.

I just want to make sure that we're protected going forward.

So those are the two things that I want to see in any kind of agreement.

This agreement as it sits today is not acceptable.

So we need to go back and um and make some adjustments to that if that if that if the board so chooses.

Okay.

Director Settle.

I thank you, Mayor.

So to the public, when this park was originally designed, uh the estimate by the team was we would lose 150,000 a year.

75,000 from the county, 75,000 from the city.

Which is a lot less than you lose running Creekmore Park today.

Over the past 11 years, we've made over a million dollars.

It has its ups and downs, has its maintenance just like anything else, but has that.

The reason I'm asking for this is to improve revenues.

There are last June.

June is a 30-month day.

There were three nights that had nothing to do.

The other 27 nights had private parties or dark water nights.

Private parties, a lot of those people would like to have adult beverages at their company parties, which increase revenues.

And it's only a two-hour or three-hour uh piece.

The other thing we do is we keep the park affordable.

In today's world, you see prices go up, go up, but yeah, we've kept the park reasonably affordable for the past 11 years.

Season pass is $53.

That's $3 more than I paid for Wet Willie's water slide back when I was 11 years old.

To go to Whit Willys was $50.

So they can go to Cart Island for 90 days over 90, 107 days last year for $53 with season pass.

So I look at this, and last thing is in the contract that we signed, the city can do an audit at any time.

This isn't Parrot Island asking for it.

The city has the option at any time during the contract to do an audit, whenever that is.

And over the years, Parrot Island has asked the city to if they like to do an audit.

Here's the information the city has chosen not to.

It's not a parrot island thing.

It's the city's choice to do the audit or not to do the audit.

And I want to get that on record.

I don't have a problem doing the audit.

I'm good with the audit.

Paradise Arm is good with the audit.

They don't have nothing to hide.

So people think that there's something to hide is wrong.

It's the city's choice not to do the audit, not Parrot Island.

Parrot Island is uh is a city and county joint venture.

It's been ran by a third-party company.

It could be company X, Company Y, Company Z, doesn't matter.

It's RAM.

But it is our amenity.

Joint.

I agree with what Director Uh Kempa said.

Let's go back with the red line and ask them what what they'd be willing to do in the future or something.

So that they are still accountable for those issues.

But ultimately, I'm trying to improve the revenue.

So that way this park is self-sustainable so the future boards do not have to worry about it.

And that's the point of bringing this up.

And I think the county sees that as an option, and I think that is as we can negotiate.

I think there's some probably common ground we can get to as a whole.

And when we do that, I think we'll be better.

So thank you, Mayor.

Director Rigo and then Director Gossavage.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to say quickly, you know, we have a responsibility to make sure that if we make a change, it's a change that is the most beneficial for the city and for our responsibilities with governance and resources.

And so, you know, if if the county is uh eager to adjust the arrangement or to part from the arrangement, you know, that means we're in the uh position, you know, the more advantageous position, and so you know, I I agree with what's been said about going back with some red lines and just seeing, you know, are there things that can be uh done or presented differently, and you know, because to the points being raised about you know maintenance needs and and whatnot, and letting a 50% partner out of a maintenance obligation does not strike me as wise.

And so is this a situation where you know some maintenance items or some of the the bigger ones, you know, get addressed and you kind of level set and bring things to a more uh uh stable uh set of order, and then you look at modification to the partnership.

So just wanted to share that.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Director Kassavage.

Well, I I would just like to add that absolving the county of their responsibility doesn't guarantee alcohol sales.

You still have to get a permit issued, and there's no guarantee that would happen.

So, you know, we're talking about redlining and going back in and negotiating.

We don't have to do that.

We already have a contract, we already have them obligated to some of these items.

Okay.

Thank you, Director Hood.

Thank you, Mayor.

Director uh Christina Kasabitz, you're you're right.

And I like the idea, I really do, of having a partner, you know, in this project.

You know, but it it's it's become to be quite clear, at least the two county meetings that I attended, that the majority of the court, quorum court was not in favor.

You know, the the issues are just similar to what we have here.

You know, they have budgetary issues, you know, they have you know uh raises to consider, you know, that unexpected lawsuit, you know, things come up, you know, for whatever reason that the county initially found value in it, the majority of the county court now does not.

But that doesn't mean our citizens don't.

You know, the the one thing, actually, there's a couple of things.

You know, we we we listen to a lot of what we see in emails and from public input here.

You know, there are a lot of folks, there were some young people here at the last meeting uh that we were discussing Parrot Island that wanted to voice their support.

You know, I go to the elementary schools and I talk to the second grade classes, and I'll tell you the last one, Howard Elementary School.

I spent time with two second grade classes and asked them, you know, if they've been to Parrot Island.

You know, we're talking about kids on the north side of town that most of you guys would think you know, low to moderate income, you know, folks, you know, that are single parent family households.

Every single one of those children in those class, but four have gone to Parrot Island, and they loved it.

They loved it, they have multiple siblings and they go.

You know, I work with the boys and girls club.

I'm on that, I'm on that committee on on the direct uh the board of directors of the boys and girls club.

You know, I asked those children, those kids, the young adults, they love it.

You know, I've been out to Parrot Island multiple times, multiplications, day and night, all day with Director Settle and Quorum Court members.

The place was full.

I asked the people that aren't from here why they come and why they come back.

This is a destination place.

People find value in that park.

The county may not as a whole now, but they did before.

The city still does, because we have to listen to our constituents, and those include the people that we don't hear in these forums.

You know, be quite honest.

You know, all this contention has caused delays.

You know, and when you have delays, it causes price increases.

And there we have it.

We are constantly bickering back and forth, and we're causing price increases and more delays.

So whether we're with the county or not, I'm for supporting Parrott Island.

Whatever the board feels is best, and whatever the county agrees on, you know, I would like for the county to be our partner.

But if we don't, again, I'm looking for what our citizens want and for the future Fort Smith needs.

Any other comments from the board?

Just a final note, and I'd love to move to the other items as well.

But to the point of Director Rigo and Director Christine Cassaves, you know, what's redlining?

If they don't want to do that, we have a partner till 2032.

I mean, I think the point is we have an obligation to represent the citizens of Fort Smith.

And administration has a favorable position in this discussion.

And I think just remembering that.

Well, then we need to fulfill the original agreement until 2032, and then we'll talk about it in 2032.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay.

Well, I will just go on record and say, I don't want to do that.

You know, we're we're putting the county in the driver's seat here that they have a contract, they have to be held to their contract.

I don't want to change the terms.

So if you're talking about sitting down with them and changing the terms, who decides those terms?

What are those look like?

I don't understand why we're in a contract and we're willing to just give it up and you know, let the person who wants out of the contract dictate the terms.

I mean, this just isn't done in business.

But I'll just go on the record and say, I don't want to do that.

Okay, thank you.

Any other comments?

Do you have?

Did you get directions?

Yes, I believe so.

I would like to see that before it goes anywhere.

Indeed.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Why don't we take a 10-minute recess and then we'll come back and finish up?

Board members are back in place.

So we're going.

Get directed good and Director Neil Martin should be back shortly.

Go check on it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Just time we'll go to item number eight.

Item eight involves items relating to extending the management agreement with American resort management for one year.

This item was specifically placed on tonight's study session.

Since since it was placed on December sixteenth, the details of this item have been rendered moot as the agreement with ARM expired on December thirty-first.

Prior to that expiration, myself and County Judge Steve Hotes signed a temporary management agreement with ARM for up to three months.

With Judge Hotz's concurrence, the city also issued a request for proposals from aquatics management companies to manage the facility under a new management agreement starting with the twenty twenty-six operating season.

Five responses to the RFP was were received on January seventh.

Any other comments from the board director camp?

Is there any timeline to when the committee to review these would report back?

So whatever that I would say, expedited processes or moving expeditiously is very important in this process.

It is.

Thank you.

Director George Cassandra.

Jeff, there's been several companies interested.

Five companies submitted a proposal, yes, sir.

Well, let me ask you the hypothetical question.

What if a company coming on and says we want to buy the water park?

And we'll keep it a water park for the next 10 years.

But y'all off the hook.

Would that even be a consideration?

That would be something for the city and the county as joint owners to consider, possibly.

I mean, they're possibly.

Possibly.

Yeah, I mean, it certainly would depend on the offer, I would think.

I mean, but uh there have there has been inquiry on on people in the past offering or at least expressing interest, not making an offer in the park, but that hasn't been something that we have entertained in the past.

I don't know that we wouldn't if we had a sufficient officer.

Well, what if they would uh offer a percentage of the profits and take all I'll take all risks?

Those are those are questions we haven't contemplated, George, in terms of another somebody else owning and operating it.

Do I don't say if you know someone interested?

Well, uh when Carl was here, he had there was a company very interested, and he said he was negotiating with them and I never heard of work since I uh I I just think that it a private business would just be a lot more efficient.

Uh I mean that that's just my I'm just putting that out there for you all to think about.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay, seeing none.

We'll go to item number nine.

Item nine is a discussion on the project to install water slides at Parrot Island.

The city took sealed bids to install the water slide complex on October 17th.

We received two bids, both more than two million dollars above the funds available for the installation from the board's $4.2 million appropriation for this project.

Since that time, there has been much discussion about what to do with the water slides, including the suggestion to work with local contractors to evaluate reducing costs so that the community can install this amenity.

Feedback received by Director Martin suggested making contact with Royal Ridge contractors, which we've done.

Director Kemp is also acquainted with the principals at Royal Ridge and worked with myself through this process.

Royal Ridge submitted the proposal that was included in the board packet for tonight's discussion, which includes installation of concrete foundations, site plumbing, and as an alternate, the the concrete pump house for a total of 1,739,935.

This number does does have uh significant exclusions, and those excluded items need to be provided by an aquatics pool contractor.

Uh we're trying to work through to to obtain numbers for those pieces as we speak, but we don't have them currently.

The Royal Ridge number would install the basic infrastructure to allow the steel and the slides to be put in place, which would be done by CSM Waterworks, who is already under contract for this work.

The pool and aquatics work by others to be determined.

The cost is being confirmed, but is estimated not to exceed $600,000 to make the slides operational.

In addition, the facility and site work, such as fencing, sidewalks, and landscaping would still be needed estimated at $350,000 for the project completion.

As for funding, regardless of where the funds come from, this is a one-time capital expense.

It is not a recurring operating cost.

In that sense, either general funds or parks sales and use tax funds have been discussed in terms of how of the where the funding source could be.

There is $655,000 remaining of the $4.2 million original appropriations that has not been allocated to any specific cost yet.

Mr.

Richards has determined that there is $760,000 in interest earnings in the parks sales and use tax fund that has not been allocated to any projects, so those funds could could be used.

Still another $1 million on top of that would be required.

And claiming one to $1.2 million from that fund balance for this project would reduce that to around $31 percent general fund reserve.

Sourcing that million dollars from the parks sales and use tax fund would require deferral of scheduled projects to future years and severely limit other parks improvements planned in 2026.

Those are the options set before us, and then um at this point I would open this uh discussion to the board.

Director Rigo, you're right.

Thank you, Mayor.

And Jeff, I just want to make sure laying it out clearly, and so correct me, please if I have spoken anything uh wrong.

So, you know, initially and and throughout this process, um this is a project that's been supported by uh the majority of the board, the narrowest of majorities, but a majority of the board.

Uh we allocated set aside $4.2 million uh to go towards this project.

Uh $3,545,000 has actually been spent, uh, leaving $655,000 uh unspent towards this project.

It looks like the effort with uh Royal Ridge and a few other folks uh adds up to $2,339,935.

You would obviously subtract out the $65 uh $55 that you have remaining, uh leaving around a million and a half dollars uh of additional spending that would need to be found somewhere uh to complete the project, which it's very interesting uh that you have compared to the bids that took place in October uh that were $3.1 million and $2.8 million, and those were each in their own way uh incomplete for the use uh of this uh of these slides.

So uh I was gonna ask, and I'm glad you pointed it out, what the uh reduction to the general fund would be if the $1.5 million uh came out of the general fund and you said $34 percent down to $31.

Um conversations have been had around selling uh the slide uh system and even I think I saw or heard around you know potential maybe there's a potential interested party, but to me, uh any sale you know price plan or scheme uh has to at least recoup the three million five hundred and forty-five thousand dollars that has already actually been spent.

Uh I'm not interested in making a sale at a loss.

And so um are those are those figures uh laid out accurately.

I think that's accurate.

I mean, there is a little bit of a difference in uh, you know, we haven't actually spent out all of the three million the the what that you talk about, because some of that is still is progress payments, so we make um on progress.

So, you know, in terms of actual dollars actually spent out is a little different than the dollars that you mentioned, which are up contractually obligated.

Well, thanks for that clarification.

And my follow up question is are there any uh have there been uh parties or entities you know that have seriously approached uh the City of Fort Smith and asked about purchasing uh this slide?

No, there has not been.

Okay.

Thank you.

Director Christine Stavers.

Why do you think that is, Jeff?

Because when we bought it, we were supposed to be getting a big discount and we had to act fast because everybody else wanted these slides.

Why do you think that is that if we're wanting to sell them, no one is interested?

I I can't I can't spec I can't answer that question.

I don't I don't know.

I mean, of course, you know, when we I don't know what the market was in 2024 when we were contemplating this purchase.

So I would imagine these slides are more uh expensive to produce today than they were when we bought them, and you know, my thinking with selling them was that we could recoup our costs.

I wasn't thinking we would have to sell them at a loss as manufacturing gets more expensive in the cost of materials.

I can't answer that question.

I know that um was it ARM said they were going to a conference and they were going to look for potential buyers.

Did we get any feedback on that?

I believe that they they have they did solicit our our problem or a project or slides to uh to other people that they thought might have interest, and to my knowledge or understanding, they they didn't make any traction with that.

All right, thank you.

Director Neil Morton, and then Director Kent.

Well, I was really interested in in the market for for them.

So um that's that's interesting.

So with with the the one thing that I've I'm I'm confused about, and I'll just want clarification.

Maybe it's in the documentation, I'm not sure.

But you know we've got the 700 or the $655,000.

We've got the $760,000 in interest, we've got the gap.

Um and then I think in the in the documentation we've got all the dollar amounts associated with this, and I'll direct this direct to Director Kemp.

With with the with the proposal that's here.

Are the slides fully operational?

With that uh with that one point like one uh one point seven million, something like that.

Are the slides fully operational?

Does that include pump house, um everything else?

Are they are they operational?

So the remaining scope of work that's not included, the exclusion is the pumps, the pool pumps, the sand filters, the pool plumbing for the slide complex.

Because that company is not a pool contractor.

And one of the reasons we felt like the bids came in so high is you were looking for companies to do kind of both of those scopes of work.

And the advantage was one, just trying to figure out you know, storing these, probably not a realistic option.

Uh it's gonna be pretty pricey.

Selling them, it's it's kind of open boxed.

You'd have to box it back up, you'd have a cost with that and things of that nature.

What would it cost to build these in the air?

But then we went a little further because we got a little feedback from the board that that's not an interest, so then we look further at it.

Um the competitiveness of this, I think that needs to be sought out by administration is and we're still waiting on some numbers, uh, four of the pool pumps, sand filters, pool plumbing.

That's what's going to be remaining to get those slides operational.

How much is that?

Well, well, we don't we don't we might know and I don't think that's wise to talk about.

Okay.

But I would say there's a budget in there.

Well, no, may I be able to do that?

Is that not the $2.3 million figure?

Yes, because in the memo, the way the memo is written, and this is the purpose of study sessions is clarity.

The proposal totals 1.7 million dollars that does have some exclusions, but gets the slides in place, absent the pool equipment slash pumps and piping required for completion work estimated at about $600,000.

So it's $1.7 million plus $600,000.

Which is why I said $2.3 million.

Which the numbers in the memo.

It's $2, yeah, $339,935.

There was we were seeing some things that said uh pool house, not pool house.

I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page.

So $2.3 million gets us fully operated.

That does that include fencing, sidewalks, landscaping, ballards.

We're as the memo states on here that there are things that it's that it's we're giving a budget range to.

If you could scroll up a little, Josh, to the page 121 on the screen here, the second paragraph is detailing that out.

In all of this, the proposal right there, it says this number includes water slides only.

It does not include required side amenities.

So it's going to be 2.2.

All in.

Um so the from my vantage of this of just looking at this, talking through this, thinking through this, most pool contractors are going to get very busy in April and May.

And if we do not move on actually constructing the slides in the air and getting the pump house built, then you may even forego those companies coming back.

The other thing you have to think about is that CSM has been waiting for a year for us to call them back to actually put the slides apparatus to the structure.

So it is to me prudent that if we're going to if this is the outcome of building the slides to get construction in order so that we can call CSM and say, hey, this is our expected deliverables for you guys to come back.

Will you be able to make this timeline?

And not only that, then coordinating with whatever pool contractor that the administration can bring forward to us, then say, hey, are you going to be able to do this?

Ideally, if you want to operate at a profit in 26, this increases this the capacity of the park.

Um, you know, the slides and can hold 500 people in line itself.

So it allows the part to not turn away customers because they're at capacity, and it allows us to increase our capacity.

So if this is the outcome we're going for, then we need to take action and uh and and start moving forward.

If if it's not, then we need to take action.

I mean, either way, we need to take action.

So this is why it's here.

How does it allow us to increase our capacity if there's no more parking?

So the parking lot is not what determines the pass capacity of what's allowed in the park.

It's the amenities within your park and the usage of space available inside the park that determines your capacity.

So everyone's gonna have to Uber there, this 25% capacity increase.

I think it's a good problem if people have to think about parking at Walmart and commuting to the water park.

I don't think that I think the parking lot for the water park, my understanding, every time I ever been out there, there's quite a bit of parking still to have for availability.

I know we talk about expanding it, but there's a lot of available parking.

Well, uh I I do know that we've got to you've got to have fencing, you've got to have all that stuff.

So we're all in 2.7 million.

I just want to make sure that I'm I was clear on all of that.

So that's that's the number.

That is the number.

Okay.

As we're getting estimates to it, yes, that's the number.

Okay.

Good.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I uh agree with Director Um Jared Rigo's comments.

Um, but I want to kind of give some thought to Director Christina Kasavit's question of why uh there's no interest in the slides now when there was initially.

Initially the slides were new.

Um and they were offered at a uh discount, a huge discount we were told.

Think about buying anything personally.

So initially those slides were new, so now they've been loaded for transport, they've been transported over highways, unloaded, sat for two years due to delays.

Delays again, drive up the price for the installation.

It drove up the price for the installation, not the slides.

Again, the initial price, the initial information we got from ARM was that these slot these slides were discounted, and the figure we were given by ARM was that uh construction included.

And again, the thing that's different is the delays.

Director Rigo.

Well, uh, you know, when you break down for excuse me on the memo, you know, if you have that, you know, the 655 that we've already voted to allocate for this $655,000, plus the um interest earnings that have accumulated of $760,000, which are have just been accumulated uh accumulating for us.

You know, you need to uh find and fund that gap of $924,935.

I mean, the as far as the impact to the citizens and impact to operation, you know, if you look at the options for addressing that $924,000, you're going to have more of an impact taking that uh out of the parks CIP on what the parks are doing versus allocating an additional $924,935 out of a $20 million fund balance.

Okay.

Uh Director George Gassavits.

Do you?

Do you all not think that we were misled from the get-go on this?

Well, I mean, basically we were we were lied to.

It's $2.1 million dollars more than we were.

$2.1 million more than we were uh more than we were quoted.

And then the county backed out.

What should have been the end of it?

That should have been in fact Carl Geffen sat right there and said, if the county backs out, it's a dead deal.

Well, that never happened.

I don't understand what you know we're not I'm not against the park.

Uh KC MillsPy is exact words.

Say we're not against the park, we're against spending seven million dollars.

And because of that, we've had to freeze our police our police department, freeze our fire department.

Um raises.

I don't even know if they're gonna get a step right now, are they?

Yes, yeah, they're getting raised.

The raises are all still there.

And spending money out of the reserve fund balance is not why positions, uh unfilled positions in the police and fire department were deprogrammed.

That's not true.

Well, how come then?

It's to achieve a balanced budget because the police and fire, that money allocated for those unfunded or unoccupied positions was more than the revenue that was coming in.

But if you had the department still in the general fund, that would more than make up for it.

It w it wouldn't have I mean this this is a one-time capital expense for these.

Fund balanced monies don't fund ongoing salary needs for um positions.

That's true.

That's true.

We overspent.

Let's admit we overspent.

Yep.

Yeah, we went on spending spree last year and has caught up with us.

But I I I mean $7 million, you all think about that for a slide.

My God, I mean, the people are out there struggling to pay their bills every day.

Kids are going hungry every day.

300 kids are food insecure every day.

What where's our priorities?

I just can't I can't support any of this.

I'm sorry, but y'all just do what you think is best.

Thank you.

Yeah, I I'm definitely sympathetic to Director George Cassavis' concerns for our community.

I mean, however, the city dollars have its restrictions.

I mean, we're not allowed to give to nonprofits.

You know, there's a restriction there.

You know, I mean, there are causes that we hear about a lot that I wish, you know, I have sensitivity to, and I wish the community could address, but we, as the state legislator has imposed upon us, put restrictions to those things.

You know, the the balanced budget is simply as if I have ten dollars coming in every month, my staff and the personal commitments can't exceed the ten dollars.

And uh these other dollars beyond the twenty-five percent, I just need to remind ourselves that that those are to go towards one-time expenditures that should not bring us down below 25 percent.

Obviously, there was some adjustments there that had to be made and because it did happen, but I just really uh want to continue to advocate that there we need to take action here that the we need to as a board to basically put this on an agenda, vote on it, and figure out which action that the board is taking so that we can move forward.

Well, because let's say let's say the board says no, then what happens?

Then I think we should take action to find the best buyers that we could for the water slides.

And take a loss.

And take a lot of your loss, potentially take a loss.

Or not take a low, or yeah.

I think the other comment though would be for reminding us, you know, if you're seven million in, what's the valuation of the slides when they're built?

I mean, does it is it a ten million dollar structure?

I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that question, but um I know leaving them laying on the ground and allowing the community to feel that this is a point of arguing is bad leadership on our part.

We need to take action.

Uh Director Rigo.

Well, I mean, in that spirit, and I agree.

You know, I I'll uh um make a motion for our next voting meeting um that we proceed with um identifying, you know, based on the numbers in the memo, the um 2,689,935 that goes into the Royal Ridge and other uh local completion number that was described in the memo, utilizing the $760,000 uh from the uh earned interest, utilizing the $655,000 that we have unobligated from the original appropriation, and then uh covering the $924,935 out of the uh $20 million general fund balance.

We've got two.

Okay.

It's to place to place them on our next vote.

I mean, for a voting, we just needed two, right?

Yes, if I could, it was the second.

So I believe everyone was um giving uh financial lessons up here.

Director Kemp did not get an answer to his question earlier when he asked if we were finishing 25 in the black, Jeff.

Can you tell us how far into the red we're finishing?

How far into the red?

How much did we overspend in 25?

Um Andy, are you here?

Could you answer that for us?

Do we have a more exact figure now than we had at the budget meetings?

I don't have an updated figure right now.

How about an estimate?

We're still waiting for just ballpark.

I would ballpark it at wherever we were when we projected it at twenty-five is the closest number I can give right now.

Because I saw that um for November the sales tax revenues came and they were down.

Yeah.

They were below projections.

So are we finishing red or black?

Andy.

Red, definitely red.

Yeah, we were in the red.

10 plus million dollars.

All the carryovers that we had and the capital that we spent during 25.

So we were in the red.

So we we spend this money.

This is my frustration.

We spend this money, and then we say, oh, it doesn't matter.

It was just a one-time thing, but it does matter.

Thank you.

Andy, is this is it accurate and does the fact remain that we have 20 and a half million dollars in our fund balance, which is 34 percent, which is well above the mandated 25 percent.

The 20 and 20 and a half million dollars of what is what we've projected to end 25 with.

Yes.

The 34 percent is based upon our projected fund balance, which is actually 19.2 at the based upon the level of expenditures that we've appropriated for 26, which makes that 34 percent.

So we've projected to be a 34 percent based upon the the total expenditures that we've projected for 26.

So spending an additional $924,000 out of that does not take us below 30 percent, would it?

No, it'd take us down to about 18 million, maybe a little more, and it'd be about 31 percent.

Thank you.

So on multiple occasions when we discussed the budget at our quarterly budget reviews, we entertained the possibility that we would dip below 20 percent.

I remember that.

That came up multiple times, so that that's still a possibility.

I mean, if we're looking at November sales tax revenues are down, we don't know about December yet.

Um, we we need to be mindful of this spending, and I feel like I hear the same argument over and over.

We need these amenities.

We have an amenity.

We have a good amenity.

Imperate island is an amenity.

It's not the choice of having it or not having it, it's how big do we want to make it?

And so I I hear this argument.

I heard it tonight with the ACME BRIC.

We've got to spend money, we've got to have amenities.

And the photos we saw for ACME were beautiful.

I saw botanical garden, I saw zip lines, these are all beautiful.

These these would be lovely to have if we could afford it.

We've got to get our priorities straight as far as the finances go because we can't do it all.

We can't do it all because this money we're spending, it matters.

Thank you.

Director Josh Cassav.

Andy, why why wasn't the board told about the 767,000 interests in the parks department before we pulled the money out of the general fund for the slides?

That's that's a number that's accumulates over time.

But I mean we didn't know about it.

Nobody told us.

Well, I mean, it was just if you go back to the it's something that we derived, it's not like a number that's just been sitting in there.

I mean, it's what what the CIP plan for the park shows.

And they didn't ever they weren't including the interest earnings that were getting allocated.

So I think at the beginning of 25, it was about it it came up to be about six hundred thousand dollars, and then um the amount of interest that they have earned during the 2023.

Could that money be put back in the general fund?

No, that's that's that's the slides came out of the general fund.

What's it shouldn't have?

It's the interest on the sales tax receipts for the parks, that's what that money is.

So it's restricted just like the sales tax receipts for the parks is.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I mean, I would just say that uh as I mentioned earlier, uh, for over 16 months now, a majority of this board has supported this project.

There's uh item that we will consider uh next week.

Uh it was placed on the board just a few on the agenda just a few minutes ago, and we'll see uh to Director Kemp's point about uh leadership and uh determinative moment, you know, we'll find out if a majority of the board continues to support this project.

You know, we'll find out if a majority of the board continues to support this project.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay, okay, thank you.

This time uh review the preliminary agenda of the January 20th, 2025 regular meeting.

Sure, you've done that.

At this time, we'll go to the citizens for you have something yes.

Each individual will have five minutes.

Uh the first being Tommy Wagley.

Good evening.

I I know we all want the city to grow and prosper, and what I'm bringing forth will help us in that aspect.

Um we need to grow and modernize like the bigger cities do.

Um, I have worked for the city of Dallas and traffic control there.

I was there was one of four.

I had everything downtown in the whole Southeast Quarter.

Um with this traffic control, when they outside contractors come close down our roads, the sidewalks, they're using the city space.

Why not make them rent it?

City of Dallas charged a thousandth of a cent per square foot per day.

There was one project just a few years ago on Dallas between 74th and Mazard.

In order to close, and it was just the sidewalk that was affected.

In order to close a sidewalk down properly, and the way that's mandated by the MUTCD is from legal crossing point to legal crossing point.

That one sidewalk was closed for almost two years incorrectly and could have made the city over a million dollars on one sidewalk.

Now it's not going to be like that all the time once contractors start seeing what the fees are for an extended period of time uh to to have things closed down just purely for their convenience.

That will change, but it'll increase this the safety for our citizens.

The city can profit off what what we did in my position there.

All contractors would have to submit a proper traffic control plan.

It would have to be reviewed.

They would come fill out for their permit and get their fee for their permit.

Anything outside of that, if their traffic control is incorrect, we there's Dallas has city ordinance where you can actually find Little Rock does too.

The city and can find the companies for having improper illegal traffic control out.

And I've worked for the city of Fort Smith in the utility department as their traffic safety specialist, and I can take even the city does not follow the M U T C D, even with all the training.

Upper management does not care.

Um I had a hundred thousand dollar budget approved for traffic control devices to get us up to standard.

30,000 was spent, the rest they spent on what they wanted.

Half of it they couldn't even use because it wasn't M UTCD legal, or it was supplemental signs to add in the middle of the required signage.

So nothing to replace.

Um we get into those aspects because it costs it, not cost, but they have the friendship, so it's the good old boy system.

The contractors end up having to pay a little more.

Now contractors doing work for the city or the city themselves obviously don't have to pay the fee.

That that's standard, but still have to submit a traffic control plan.

So that would even force the city to do things correctly.

And what management at the utility department always went on, well, the city can't be sued.

No, well with the whatever agreement that was, the city may not be able to be sued, but each individual person involved that has been trained and knows better.

If there's an accident, somebody trips and gets hurt because the sidewalk is not done correctly, is liable for for a tort lawsuit.

Every single person involved, and I've tried to get them in involved in that and just to educate them in that aspect as well.

Um but that that good old boy system and knowing contractors and having that that little backdoor handshake with some of them has prevented this and prevented me from bringing this forward before when I worked for the city.

So I know there's a lot to dig into there.

Five minutes isn't a lot to the time to get into all that, but my information is on the card if you have any questions.

I had a full proposal with everything worked out before when I was at the city, it's in storage now, but I figured with the with the state we're in, it's it's time to bring it forward and see get y'all's opinion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Daniel Williams.

You know, we have things that are going to be challenging coming up, and I feel like some of those things we've dealt with in the last couple of years.

One was you know, looking at how we manage things and looking at the budgeting things.

I definitely hear some of those things that that y'all are looking at, and I feel somewhat better, but could we get out of the business of being like a private business and be just like concerned about the people in the community and the structuring of things?

Like when I start hearing about making money on alcohol, whether that be at the convention center or at other places for the city, it's really disturbing to me.

I want to I want to try to focus on the positive.

So but yet we've had five schools shut down recently in the last few years.

We have another school that's fixing the shutdown in North Fort Smith, spradling.

Um we have uh 1.5 million dollar less income for our school system uh that's gonna bring more challenges.

We have this Learns Act where people can send their kids, live in city and send their kids out of the city.

Uh and we're and we're fighting over a water slide and things like that.

Um I feel like uh we we've tackled some things.

I'm really happy that we have less water leaks because I haven't heard much about the seven million dollar expense that we're gonna have to on the new water line or the transition line, but I know it's still out there, and I know we're still looking at maybe uh water meters and stuff like that.

I still hadn't heard anything on the Aracoma water.

I brought it up the last study session of the last month, and I'll keep bringing it up because are we just uh not responsible enough to make people pay their bills or I don't know how that works, but at least let us know.

Uh I'm losing somewhat of confidence in a few of you that I that I really like, and uh you know uh it feels like we need lots more change in leadership, but I'm not sure because if we keep doing business the way we're doing it, it doesn't really matter who's sitting in the position.

Yeah.

So um I was happy that we had our uh new auditor here tonight.

I've never uh you know, for a year and a half we didn't have an auditor.

I guess that was a strategy somehow to not oversee things.

I don't know.

Uh but I did I was excited about that, and and uh our new engineer was here tonight.

That was exciting to know that we have someone that can oversee projects and look into those details.

Um, y'all just overcommitted or overworked outside in your regular cares and affairs uh to where you can't focus in and tend to things here, or I'm not sure.

Uh Andy, when he comes up here, he never has a number.

This has been two years.

Who holds him responsible?

Um do y'all do that, or am I supposed to do that?

Or I'm still a little confused on that.

Transparency is more than just a buzzword.

I believe transparency is uh directly taking numbers and saying this is what it can do, and if we ever meet this number, this is what it could do.

We haven't got to that place of what it could do yet, but there is a process, I believe, that we can get there, but it's gonna take some real work and it's gonna take some real change, and it's gonna take uh being really open and transparent and uh and being willing to do the hard work, and so um I believe we have a lot of citizens in this community that care for this city.

Uh I'm concerned for North Fort Smith because the schools that are shutting down.

I know as I talk to other families and things, uh they're concerned too.

Um I'll continue to participate as much as I can the school boards and here.

Um but I feel like the challenge that we're faced with has to start right here.

And how you communicate to the people, and and and again, I said it last time, I'll say it again.

We've been here for a couple hours already, and now we just now get to listen to the citizens.

And um, and I think that there needs to be at least one of these to where it's just all the citizens get to come.

Maybe you'd have more citizens involved.

And so we are at a crossroads, and I do want this city to thrive because I've lived here 18 years, and I'd like to I'd like to retire here one day, but I don't know that uh that many people are gonna come uh to do that um the way things are now.

So please please consider praying about one of the first things I said when I first came here was don't serve the almighty dollar, serve the almighty Lord.

Okay.

Next we have Chris Cadelli.

Good evening, and and thank you for the opportunity to uh to speak to the board.

Um for those of us that that choose to exercise our First Amendment rights by participating during the citizens' forum, we should be able to do that without infringement.

Why limit our comments if this is the citizens' forum?

We ought to be able to come up here and say what's on our mind.

Why is the citizens' form at the end of the study session?

Is it in the hopes that during controversial periods you can stack the meeting so that uh you know those who can't uh stay for more than a couple hours will leave.

I'd ask you know, show a little consideration for the folks that you work for and have reschedule the citizens' forum to the beginning of the meeting.

Um let people have an opportunity to talk to you.

You might you might learn something.

Um I'd like to also thank this board for recognizing the need to hire a national search firm to assist us in the search for a new city administrator.

The ongoing water slide, fiasco continues to haunt us, uh haunt the Fort Smith taxpayer, even though it's been over a year since Carl Gifkin was fired, and serves as a stark reminder, the absolute necessity we find a conservative city administrator with a proven track record of integrity, transparency, and fiscal discipline.

The current acting city administrator represents business as usual, the same kind of business that has us spending taxpayer dollars on studies for a new park at a time when critical city services are being asked to do more with less.

A time when tough decisions have been made around budget cuts, the same kind of business as usual that has four million dollars in water slide parts laying on the ground for well over a year because of highly questionable cost estimates presented to the board.

In light of the systemic fraud being exposed in Minnesota and many other states across this country.

This fraud appears rampant in many NGOs, nonprofits, and other private public partnerships dependent on taxpayer subsidies.

So I too was happy to see our new director of internal audit uh here tonight.

Thank you.

Next we have Crystal Cadelli.

Good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Um I wanted to address um some comments that were made by the board.

Um, Mr.

Rego, I understand that we have 20.5 million dollars in our fund balance, but we also have an estimated billion dollars in infrastructure issues.

Uh the 20.5 million dollars doesn't even scratch the surface of the amount of money that we need to take care of um our infrastructure problems, which has uh tremendous impact on the citizens of Fort Smith, and um our our utility bills and our taxes.

Um I also want to address the fact that Chief Baker did stand up here um a few weeks back and say that the budget cuts did impact um him from hiring additional officers that he plans that he will need in the future.

Um Mr.

Kent, I understand that the city cannot give nonprofits um money, but this board is responsible for the affordability of water, and people are having to choose between food and paying their water bill.

So yes, in a roundabout way, children are or could be hungry because their parents are also trying to uh make sure that they have water, they have showers, they have the necessities, so I would like for you to keep that in mind when you vote to spend money.

Um, Mr.

Good, your constituents want lower water rates, they want lower taxes rather than a new water slide.

Nobody is asking this board to close down Parra Island, and I find it very um ridiculous that it has gone on this long.

We should make a decision.

Um when this uh these slides were voted in, the company I remember stood at this podium and said that they were going to provide storage that those slides will not be sitting on the ground.

Well, they lied.

They also said that they um that the slide that we were supposed to get, we didn't get.

And this board approved the new slide, which has also put us in this situation.

I think that um if we do decide to keep the slides, we should get it from the parks budget.

The parks 2026 budget for operating costs is over 3.8 million dollars.

The capital budget is 7.4 million dollars, totaling eleven point two million dollars.

That's for our parks.

People are hungry and we're worried about 11.2 million dollars in our parks.

Building new parks costs more money, adds to our uh our operating costs overall, cost the citizens.

We have enough parks.

We don't need additional parks.

We need to maintain what we have.

If we need to put projects on hold to pay for the slide, then we need to take it out of the 11.2 million dollars, the 7.4 that is budgeted for 2026.

We need this board needs to focus on what is important and what is important is the growth of the city.

We can see that that's not happening.

Our tax revenues are down month over month, our housing markets down, we have infrastructure issues, we have drainage issues, we're putting band-aids on things instead of fixing them, permanently fixing them.

We need to focus on bringing businesses in, the mayor, the city administrator can help the chamber of commerce.

We don't need to solely depend on them to bring businesses in.

New businesses equal jobs, new jobs equal revenue.

So I would ask that every single person on this board be conscious of how you're spending the money from this day forward, and think about the people that put you in that seat because that's what's important, not what's going to self-serve you or what is going to empower you in your personal life.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate your time tonight.

Next we have Glenn Forte.

The city's inside shape.

My street, my neighborhood.

Looks like Venezuela.

And you talk about contractors with equipment all over public ways, sidewalks and streets.

There's businesses in the city that store equipment, forklifts on city sidewalks.

They're made for pedestrian traffic, not for forklifts within a quarter of a mile from here.

I would like everybody in this room tomorrow to come to my street and for months.

And for months, look at what's going on.

There's three houses across from my house.

They're going to be ripping it all up because the people that were hired from Forest Green obviously can't read or write or use a tape measure.

And that's got a lot to do with some city employees here.

They refuse to do the right thing.

And the results show it.

I've had years of dog waste feces in my driveway, my walks, my street, and you people refuse to take care of the problem.

I had a crazy lady next door to me.

She tried to have me put in an institution and locked up because I'm crazy, she says.

Well, she's not here now.

She blew her brains out on December 20th and ruined my holiday.

Because the police department refuses to let the public know what's going on after dark.

It's a shame.

They took a rifle out of there in July.

That was probably meant for Glenn because there were some street people with this 65-year-old lady doing meth, drinking, using a car all night, and it was a place of hell in crime between the fire trucks, the ambulance.

She beat her mother three years ago, got arrested, and the mother died from some of the complications.

Then she takes over the house, and look where it is.

She called my neighbor and said, I'm calling them to have her call the police department.

I'm sitting in my kitchen throwing out junk mail.

I thought someone come to visit me.

There's three police cars out front.

They walk out with the black body bag and take her out after she called the police on me and had them come down, read me the riot act that I gotta stop complaining about dogs.

Well, look where she is.

The city refuses to get along with the taxpayers and the people that live here, and they have attitudes.

There's three people at five after eight, they're feed up in the air drinking coffee, having breakfast on my dollar.

Then I go home, there's six or eight people and two trucks at the church for two hours.

I called utilities and I talked to Chuck.

And if you don't believe it, look it up.

I don't lie.

The Reeds also here.

And I have a neighbor at 4421 for four or five years with a dog, been sighted twice from a dog control guy that moved from Van Buren dog control over here.

And he was able to get the dogs, but the people here refuse because they think I'm a pain in the ass.

Well, I drive a scooter, and I've had that dog come after me, and it ain't right.

You people do not enforce the laws, but you collect the money in the courthouse and write the tickets.

I've had the city police department come down.

I tell them to write the ticket, wake them up, give them a ticket, bring them to court.

They wake me up, the dogs.

Bach all night.

They refuse to write a ticket.

They refused to take them to court.

They had goats between two houses.

They were trying to hide them.

They had roosters.

It took a few years to take care of the problem because you people are on the take and you refuse to do your job because people like me.

I've been told I'm a little pain in the ass.

Well, let me tell you, I'm ready to clean house.

I grew up with the Irish mafia, and I'm tired of everybody's insults and treating people not from here the wrong way.

And I had a city cop on the payroll, my neighbor threatened to murder me and kill me.

And I'm going after him and the rest of you.

And I feel everybody in this city needs to take a pay cut 30% across the board because this city is not run anywhere near right, and the chief of police keeps all the crime hidden.

Oh, the crime's going down.

He needs to resign.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next we have Joe Elskin.

Well, I thought y'all had a really good meeting tonight.

I thought you were calm and covered a lot of questions and answers.

I appreciate the work you do.

And I trust that you're doing the best you can.

I just um I'm concerned about the um 15% cut that went across the board.

Is that my that was my understanding?

And just some departments don't have fat to cut.

And so representing the transit department, I was really upset to hear that, or to find out that the voucher program is cut.

And that to me, I mean, you know, the route adjustments are inconvenience and a problem, but you know, we can live with that.

But uh the voucher program provides transportation for doctor visits and for other services that the least of our citizens need.

And so um am I correct that it's still being cut, the voucher program, the TAC, yes.

Okay.

So that that means that Crisis Intervention Center, Arkansas, Western Arkansas Guidance and Counseling, Rescue Mission, Goodwill, the Cancer Center, you know, you know, they're like 25 nonprofits that are serving the least of us, and they can't provide those free vouchers for transportation to services that these people need.

So I just put that in your hat and think about when you're talking about um cutting that maybe there's a slower, better way to do it.

But I don't want to criticize because I know y'all are doing the best you can uh just for the future.

Um I did have uh a thought that that's kind of crazy because you know how I am about living in a uh rose colored glass world.

Um some cities are offering incentives for builders to um build in low-income housing in in fill and making sure cooperating with the transit to make sure that those are going or giving them incentives to build where the transit is supplying services so these low-income residents can get where they need to go.

Uh you know, many of them don't travel any other way than transit.

So that's just a thought that it can be done, and uh if it's in fill, it would be less expense for the builders and for the city too.

And just a little for your information a new round of grants for brown fields just dropped, and so I'm hoping that you all will support your grant writer, maybe looking at a at a brown field grant for acme.

And thank you for your service, and um I for one support you.

Thank you.

Next we have Dr.

Charlie Hartsfield.

I'm sorry it's so late, board, but thanks for giving me a moment.

How many of you have actually driven up into the brick plant property and looked at what's there, the pit, the flatland, uh, the part that comes down there, the stoplights, a lot of water comes down through Burt Wright's area down from Country Club Hill down through that valley, how the water flows, and just thought about it.

It helped with your perspective of what they're trying to do.

It bothers me that when they show the pictures, it looks like heart scrabble.

We we don't have that out there, but we need to mitigate the water, and I I'd be for the first plan, the simple plan.

Do a good job on mitigating the water in a few years if that works well, then think about developing around the thing.

Country Club Hill's got the water tower, and I see it every day, and it's also got an oil and gas pumping station there doing something.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's that whole edge is not good for development.

So I don't when I see these ideas about parks with our budget that we have.

I'd be all about a good water mitigation system, but developing parks, maybe a mountain bike situation, but we need to mitigate the water for the north side of town if that's what that's what we need to do.

Do a good job, plan one and plan two and three would come later.

That's just my thought.

Next we have Casey Millspaw.

How y'all doing, board?

Casey Millspaw.

Um, previous chairman of the Parks Commission.

I was on the Parks Commission for five years.

Um I haven't seen a lot of you in a while.

It's good to see some of you.

Uh it's been been five years.

Um I've met I've mostly minded my own business, right?

Growing my my own small business here in Fort Smith, Fort Smith popcorn.

I've been minding my own business, but this Parrot Island things kind of got me drugged back in here out of retirement because it's kind of gotten a little out of control.

Um I think we can all agree that Gaffkin lied to us.

He didn't tell us the truth.

And he kind of he he lied to us.

I don't know any other way to put it.

And here we are now.

We got this huge bill in front of us.

And you can tell from the Parrot Island protest that went on.

I know that felt a little hostile, but there was a lot of community engagement with people who usually don't come and get engaged with these type of things.

And listen, I'm very involved with the community over my time.

I've done a lot with the community.

I raised money through L's for trails for five years.

You know, we we raised a couple hundred thousand dollars for the trail system.

I dedicated a lot of my time to doing this to give them back to the community.

So just when I after five years for this to drive me back out, this is important.

And the people that showed up to the Parrot Island protest and have participated in the Parrot Island protest.

That was a big thing for our community.

It was.

We don't see that much participation when it comes to things.

I know it's a very contested uh uh ordeal here, but it's important and people care a lot about it because it's a lot of money that we're throwing around seven seven million dollars.

It's a lot of money.

So I just want you guys just uh take that into consideration.

The people that are standing up on both sides.

I don't I'm not I don't live in just a hyper bowl.

I've got both sides talking to me about this situation, and they are not ready for y'all to move forward and make a vote and and to vote on this thing right away.

So I hope that you guys cannot just plow forward and spend the money.

I hope that you can actually what I hope that you do is sell them.

We were they they were sold to us and we bought them.

So can't we explore that first?

Can't we at least expand we may miss the season?

We may miss the season, Hunter.

And I'm and if it takes that extra time, it takes that extra time.

But that's a lot of money.

We're not even paying the city direct uh the city administrator more than $200,000 a year, but we'll we'll dump seven million on some slides.

So I I just think that before we plow forward and spend those millions, let's just see if we can't get some buyers.

Let's just see maybe if somebody wants to buy the park.

I mean, what's it gonna what's it what are we gonna lose other than possibly one season?

And I hear you, Andrew, what you're saying it adds up, and it does.

I get it.

But we don't need to just plow that's a lot of money.

It's a lot of money.

There's a lot of people engaged and very opinionated about this.

So we have an opportunity to really show some leadership, and hey, maybe we did make a mistake.

Maybe Geff can let us down the wrong path, but we need to show the community some leadership and say, look, we made a mistake.

We'll fix it.

We're gonna go, we're gonna fix it, we're gonna do something about it.

You know, we're not gonna just throw good money after bad.

So, anyways, thanks for listening.

It's good to see some of you.

It's been a while.

Thanks.

Yeah, I I do have some others that have signed in, but they did sign in for to speak about the acme big brick.

Shoot, I can't talk.

Acme brick property, which is an item on the agenda.

So, do you want me to go ahead and call their names just in case they want to comment?

What is the ordinance?

The ordinance, the the the code actually states that in the citizens forum that matters can be brought uh to the board that are for items that are not already on this meeting's agenda.

So they should have spoken during that period of time, and of course we couldn't, but those studies say, but I think we should stay with your audience.

Any comments from the board?

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Dingman, you recognize at the end.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Was that Madam Clerk?

Yes, that's all okay.

Mr.

Dingman, you recognize.

Uh just in terms of reminder, if we're near the end here, the city offices are closed on Monday, uh, January 19th for Martin Luther King Jr.

holiday.

That's the only comment I had.

Okay.

Would that uh entertain a motion to adjourn?

Thank you.