Oh, I'm sorry.

That picture should be one more extra.

Good evening and welcome to the force of the city board of directors' study session on this February twenty-fourth of twenty twenty-six.

This time we'll go right to the agenda for uh director Christina, you're recognized.

Um you want me to kick it off?

So our um reviewing our proposed consent decree modification.

Um Jeff, I'm wondering why this is brought to us today when the AG's office has not had time to review it.

They have rey have reviewed it.

It got back to the d the Department of Justice late last week and that and they sent it to us on Friday.

We got it from uh the attorney at the Department of Justice through Mr.

Calamita.

Okay.

Because it sounded like in some of the reporting I read that they were still reviewing it at the AG's office.

And and they may still have comments to make to it, but I believe that they have uh at least have informed the Department of Justice that they were finished with review and it was it was appropriate to send to us.

So what what I'm wondering and what I want some clarity on is when um when I talked to ADEQ did we satisfy the conditions required under Article Nine to obtain the five year extension?

Because when I when I spoke with ADEQ, they said there were some necessary steps the city was supposed to take that we never did.

So is do we have a formal court order modifying the decree to 2032?

We do not.

And that's part of the discussion that's centered around the modification.

And Mr.

Calamita, I think, will address that.

But I think that Judge Holmes had at one point indicated that he believed that we did satisfy the requirements to to trigger the five-year extension piece, but it has never been formalized until this is the first formal approach towards modification through the court order.

Because my my understanding, and I remember Director Morton spoke about this a lot when he was on the board was that we had been given five years, but they never adjusted the schedule.

They never adjusted the timeline.

So I was under the impression we had that five-year extension.

I'm wondering if anyone else on the board was under that impression as well.

I knew that we had that the DOJ said or the Judge said yes, but I knew it wasn't finalized, and so we were still under the old 12-year number.

That's correct.

Okay.

So on the um the changes to Article 9, the new language, I'll tell you what concerns me is the new language that says defendants' failure to provide adequate funding shall not be a defense to any failure to comply with this agreement and order.

And then you go on to the next paragraph 59.

It says the three and a half um yearly increase is a baseline.

That's not a cap.

They're asking us to use our taxing authority, rate increases.

Um, I I think we need to preserve some mechanism for schedule reconsideration based on financial circumstances.

We don't know what the next decade is going to hold.

So that um that's something of concern to me.

And um let's see.

Um, you know, we're losing our ability to negotiate based on one extension.

So when I look at it, we're paying outside council $800 an hour.

We're in a different regulatory climate than when we entered into this decree.

Uh we have an administration that seems to be friendly.

They're sc scaling back aggressive enforcement in other contexts.

So I'm wondering, is this really the best deal we can get?

Because I feel like we're we're caught with a false choice here.

We're not close to completing the work.

We need more time, but our residents can't bear the burden of these increases.

Uh you know, I'm wondering what what is someone's bill going to look like in 2030 or 2035.

Well, and I think I think a portion of that, the language that's included in the modification indicates that you know, rates could are part of that structure, but any other uh any other revenues that we might identify uh toward to go towards those improvements can be attributed as well and not require those rate increases.

And I think that language was was intentionally included.

Okay.

I'll I'll yield my time.

I just, you know, when I had listened to the new EPA Director Zeldon speak last year at a conference I was at, he spoke and he talked so passion, he spoke so passionately about cooperative federalism.

And when I look through this agreement, when I talked to our officials at the state, you know, I thought what we were moving towards was for the state to have more authority, and it seems like we're giving up a lot just for this time extension.

Well, and I think there's there still is advocacy for um state a state role, an increased state role in enforcement of consent decree matters, but that is a I think we're still at the front end of that of those discussions.

And I don't know, I know that Mr.

Calameda is familiar with that type of discussion and maybe can comment on that.

As it as it seems to me right now, it seems like if we we sign this, we lose all leverage we have.

I mean, based on the language that's in here.

I mean, it says defendants' failure to provide adequate funding shall not be a defense to any failure to comply with this agreement in order.

That that I find that concerning.

Mr.

Calamita, can you speak to that?

Uh yes, good good evening.

Good evening, everybody.

Um, Mayor McGill, members of the board, Paul Calamita with Aqua Law, excuse me.

Uh and I have the uh privilege of being the big face on the wall, um, which is never a good thing.

But uh uh Director uh Katzavas um a couple of things.

One, my my billable rate is a lot lower uh than you have suggested, unfortunately.

Uh two, uh the language that you are concerned about, I don't like either.

Uh but it is in every single federal consent decree uh that's out there.

And that's hundreds and hundreds of them.

It was in the previous one.

That is that is the same language from the previous one.

Um that is not the hill to die on when we are when we have been in noncompliance, largely through no fault of our own.

We've been paddling as fast as anybody could expect us to paddle.

But but in my judgment, um we've we've got a very good modification that would put us back into full compliance.

And uh that language, that boilerplate language, which even the Trump DOJ continues to impose every day in new consent decrees is not the hill for us to die on in the circumstances that we're in.

But I share your concern.

We still have an opportunity for a modification, a unilateral modification of the consent decree if we really did run into significant financial or other force majeure type events.

Well, uh I referenced $800 an hour because I believe that's what we appropriated.

Is that not correct for aqua law?

$800 an hour?

Anyone else remember that?

No, ma'am.

I mean, we have a we have a we approved a contract with them for up to an amount.

I mean, I don't remember what that's I think it was $800 an hour, if my notes are correct.

Um I just when I when I talk to officials at the state level, it seems like they really believe in us.

They are really advocating for us.

And what was communicated to me was it it seemed like the DOJ was a bit inflexible.

That's why I would like to see uh more enforcement, more authority placed with the State.

I disagree.

If I may, um the State Attorney General's office has has uh signed off on this version as um uh that's been relayed to us by attorneys from um ADEQ and the DOJ.

So they've both represented that the State uh is good with this.

Uh uh under the Trump II administration, because they've reduced uh Department of Justice staff, EPA staff, and they they really believe in cooperative federalism, there is an opportunity to move these consent decrees from the Federal Government and Federal Court to a State Order or State Cent Dee.

But but there are three conditions precedent.

The first is that you have funding, uh which we now have.

The second is that the state is willing to take on that burden, which we think they are.

The third is you have to have demonstrated durable compliance, so some period of compliance.

And that's where I think we're currently lacking, again, through no fault of our own.

Um I see this modification as the uh the last step here, and and that in the next year or two, hopefully, if if the State of Arkansas remains willing uh that we can then transfer this to this uh uh to a state enforcement mechanism, which would be much more flexible for this type of citywide long-term construction project.

I think it's much more appropriate to be at the uh with the state, and that the Department of Justice and E USCPA are are going to be significantly less able to manage the day-to-day and month-to-month implementation of these programs.

So I think it will make sense, but we need to establish that durable compliance to have that opportunity.

See, what I was told was that the DOJ is only looking at our reported SSOs.

They're not looking at the other progress we're making.

Would you say that's accurate?

Yes, they are um uh the Department of Justice uh views these consent decrees as being sancrosanct and and um any kind of noncompliance uh is a concern.

Um I don't I don't feel they've properly given us credit for the efforts that you all have made.

Uh and that's not unusual.

They are they are um uh not easily impressed.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Director Did you have any comment?

Okay.

Director Neil Martin.

So uh one of the one of the biggest concerns that I had uh with this is the stipulated penalties.

And let's talk a little bit about that, Mr.

Calamita.

So in some instances, there have been stipulated penalties assessed against the City of Fort Smith, of which we've paid.

Um but there are also potential stipul potential particulate uh stipulated penalties that are out there that feel like uh a weight over our heads.

Can first off, can I can I ask this question?

How were we assessed stipulated penalties in some instances, but not in this broad you know, I'm hearing you know, 15, 25 million dollar in stipulated penalties.

It's kind of hanging over our heads.

But we've paid a couple million in stipulated penalties.

Number one, why?

Why have we why were those penalties uh assessed?

And then well, first just let's start with that.

Let's start with that.

So um every consent every federal consent decree has stipulated penalties.

That's one big difference between Federal and State enforcement.

Uh we have paid stipulated penalties in the past for a subset of the sewer overflows that have occurred.

We have not paid any stipulated penalties for being late.

Uh part of that is because of Judge Holmes' five years.

Uh part of that is because of force majeure circumstances like COVID and floods.

So far, the only stipulated penalties we have paid has been for a subset.

I would say half or less of the overflows that have occurred.

And part of that is because some of those overflows occurred during force-major events like the floods, somewhere because the Sunny Mead storage basin, your largest storage basin was out of service because of the floods for almost a year.

So the agencies recognize they couldn't find us for all, and so we've paid for a subset.

And part of our thinking on that was to get that issue out of the way so that we can move to the CD modification, which we desperately need because we are out of compliance.

We need this modification so that we get back into full compliance, hopefully for the indefinite future.

And then that's a much different footing to have stipulated penalty discussions.

We've also, under Trump One, had some stipulated penalty demands withdrawn in an ideal world, seeing how hard you've worked and in particular how you are now going to be able to frontload a lot of the remaining work through the sales and use tax and the and the bonding of that, my hope is that the agencies will recognize those commitments, defer any decision on stipulated penalties, and if we can stay in compliance for a year or two, um maybe let the any stipulated penalties go.

Stipulated penalties are to change behavior, right?

When you get a speeding ticket, it's to slow you down.

We have been paddling as fast as we can on this program, so I don't believe stipulated penalties serve any public purpose, and I would like to see the agencies withdraw them.

So if we um if we were to sign this agreement, does that bind our our hands or tie our hands in being able to go back and talk about these?

I mean, to me, to me, uh one of what one of the frustrations about this consent degree just in the first place, I was not on the board at the time, is we signed it, and now we're we have to deal with it, right?

So what whatever the decisions that were made at the time they are what they are, but we're in it now.

So my concern is if we sign this, we're in it now, and the Federal government can just say they could they could they could assess those stipulated penalties and we've got no recourse because we signed it.

We we agreed to Right Well, there are already stipulated penalties in what you agreed to.

They're really no different than in in the modification.

The way to look at this, though, is you desperately need this modification.

Uh with the modification, you get back into full compliance.

This is not the time to have a fight with them about stipulated penalties, and we've set this up so that you get your modification first, and then if the Federal Government still thinks we need stipulated penalties, if they're modest and you're willing to pay them to move on, great.

If they're stipulated penalties are unreasonable, you have every opportunity to challenge them and bring our case before Judge Holmes that we don't think they're appropriate.

I will tell you, you know, a lot of utilities uh pay stipulated penalties.

Many of my clients for some reason don't, you know, they're not assessed.

There are many utilities around you who have not paid any stipulated penalties, so there's been inconsistent application of them, but you desperately need this modification to get back into compliance.

Sure.

Um let me because they concern me so much, I just have a uh a couple questions.

Can you pay stipulated penalties from the bond proceeds that we have the the citizens authorized?

So you're shaking your head no.

So that would mean that those um stipulated penalties would have to come from somewhere else.

So if you have from rate revenue, general fund, wherever, usually rate revenue.

Okay.

Okay.

So if the Federal Government were to come back and say we're going to assess $25 million in stipulated penalties.

And I I guess you're shaking your head being like that doesn't seem logical or it's probably highly unlikely.

But if they were, they would have to come out of rates or general fund or something like that.

Okay.

I one thing I wanted to to look at and say I was hopeful that there wouldn't be a desire to um say that okay, the City of Fort Smith has these has this uh sales tax uh one percent for 30 years that okay, they've got the money, so they can pay this 25 million dollars.

Yeah.

No.

There is no circumstances we are agreeing to pay anything close.

Uh I'm not even thinking about 10 percent of that number.

Um, I think you you would be compelled to fight that before Judge Holmes.

And my sense is the Trump administration, uh the political leadership would understand fast you've been paddling, how hard you've been doing this, how high the hill remains, and that finding you is counterproductive at this time.

Uh is there so I I have seen some language in here that talks about our ability to um contest certain things.

And maybe you might you might help me clarify you might clarify it uh that for me.

But are there is are there easier mechanisms in this modification to be able to go and and challenge stipulated penalties like we're like we're talking about?

Yes.

Well, first of all, the what happened was the federal government did not has not assessed or I better more specifically demanded any further stipulated penalties from you.

What they have done is they have rattled the saber by sending us a letter to try to motivate us to come to a a modification agreement on their terms.

Uh they've they've sent you a a letter saying, hey, we could demand this level of stipulated penalties.

They have not sent a demand.

Uh so that's number one.

Number two, the current consent decree has a fatal defect in that the dispute resolution process does not have a shot clock on the agencies when we get to formal dispute resolution.

And and so we can't there's not a process to get to Judge Holmes if we have a uh a beef with uh with the agencies over the consent decree.

And and when we're a noncompliance, or let's say stipulated penalties, they demand stipulated penalties, we don't pay them.

Well, every day we don't pay them, there's a penalty for that.

And and they can prevent us from getting to the judge.

So this modification over their stringent objection.

I mean, I was offended.

That's just unfair.

All the other consent decrees have a very clear period where we send them a note of dispute, they have a period of time to respond, and then if we don't agree, we get to go to Judge Holmes.

Well, and this is the only consent decree that didn't have a deadline on them, and they didn't want to change that.

But in the at the very end, they understood that was a non-start of force and they did change it so they have a shot clock, and if they impose stipulated penalties, we can we now have a direct path to Judge Holmes if you elect to take it.

Okay.

Um and I'll I'll open I'll let the the rest of my board members talk through this.

But so if we sign this modification, day one, we are back in full compliance.

That's not good.

That's not good.

Um you froze, you froze right there.

So you you kept this on baited breath.

So uh start over.

Start over.

Sure.

Well, let me say that we think this is a fair schedule.

Normally when a modification like this is done, you get a schedule that gives you one nostril above water because you you're behind, you're a bad actor.

And uh and that's how we started with the five years, right?

The five years was not enough.

The reason we never got the five years was EPA said, okay, Judge Holmes is gonna give you five years, give a schedule for the work to get it done and not twelve.

That internet will get you.

They're now giving us an additional eleven and a half, which is validation of everybody agreeing that five years wasn't enough.

But because we wouldn't waste those engineering dollars to give them a five-year schedule that we knew we couldn't meet, we never officially got the five years.

And it was unfair of DOJ to put us in that position.

But the 11 and a half year schedule, we believe, based on what we know now, is a reasonable schedule that gives us a good chance of being successful.

Okay.

I'll let others speak.

Director Rigo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to Mr.

Calamita, Mr.

Dingman, Mr.

McAvoy, anyone who worked hard on this at the at the city level, at the state level, at the federal level.

I know the relationship has improved uh substantially because of work uh put in by some of the gentlemen that I named, um Mr.

Canfield, your team.

Um, this is a good thing uh that I appreciate seeing and actually having concrete you know in our hands um because I think it's just important to remember that the actual deadline that's in force now is January the first of 2027, correct?

So, you know, just a thing to consider.

I don't personally see where a lot of um leverage, if you will, exists uh on our end when you have a deadline of that nature rapidly approaching, which also happens to coincide with the uh new terms of office for folks that are running for office, so I think it's very important uh that we address um this in this concrete way that you have provided with us.

And I just have a question uh from your expertise.

How likely, Mr.

Calamita, would it be for the DOJ to reduce or modify or or bring down that stipulated penalty number if we were not to accept this 11 and a half year agreement uh that's in front of us today.

If if you um I I I think um you will really uh uh if I were the DOJ and you didn't take this deal, which they don't like, by the way, you know, once they have a the a bargain, their bargain was January 1, 27.

Once they have their bargain, they never want to uh give anything away, right?

Now they're given eleven and a half more years on top of the bargain that one of their colleagues already negotiated.

If you don't take this deal, they're gonna feel like they need to get your attention, even under the Trump administration, you know, there's some regulatory relief, but there's a lot a lot of talk about it, but there's a lot of things the Trump administration is sticking to, like PFAS, like MCLs for drinking water and hazardous waste designations for PFAS.

There's a lot of things on the water side that there's been zero regulatory relief from the Biden administration.

And I will say, if you were the if I were the DOJ, I think they would definitely hit you with a significant stipulated penalty demand to get your attention.

Uh they would feel like this was a very reasonable deal modification, you've been in noncompliance.

This gives you a clean slate.

And if you don't take this, if if I were them, I would I would more than rattle the saber, I would get your attention.

Well, I appreciate you sharing that um uh perspective with us.

And again, to to anyone listening, anyone watching that was involved in this very complex multi-year bit of business uh on either side of the agenda.

I know that uh from my perspective is one-seventh up here.

I am very, very grateful for the work that was put in and the desire to work with us uh in a way that uh brings some progress and brings us closer to doing this very, very important engineering work that we need to do.

Because underneath it all, underneath all the conversations about timing and money and all these sorts of things, we have a system that we're fixing and improve and improving in the course of this work, and that is a very, very good thing for the residents of our community.

You want clean water to come in to your house so you can use it, and you want that water once you've used it, and once it's dirty, you want it to go away the way that it should.

And so, as a part-time uh member of a legislative body, a part-time politician, I'm grateful very much to the full-time folks who have worked to the bone to get us to this point.

So thank you very, very much.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh I'll go to Director Camp and then Director Good.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I think this is great, and I appreciate the work uh Mr.

Kalmina and all those that have been involved.

I do wish we had gotten here sooner.

Uh it does seem like this has taken a long time, but it then brings a lot of Pandora moments about well, is this everything we should have gotten?

Is there something left on the table?

And I think it allows us this.

I think one of the things I like about this is the shot clock, how it will improve the dispute resolution process.

And uh just want to follow up with that.

By agreeing to this modification, we still retain the right for viable and uh prudent disputes that may come along the way of the journey, correct?

Absolutely.

Uh the major benefits are the additional time, which we obviously needed.

Also, this modification gives um Jeff and Lance and their team much more flexibility to prioritize the work that delivers the greatest benefits up front for the citizens, uh, which was very important to us in in actually reducing sewer overflows.

Uh so we're we're not anticipating uh a lot of disputes, but but we desperately needed that shot clock on EPA so that we had a uh uh an ability to get to the judge.

And for reasons I don't understand, we had pointed that out to the judge in a previous uh dispute, and he didn't seem concerned about it.

He basically said, Well, that was the bargain that you negotiated and wasn't going to change the contract, even though I really feel it was an oversight and quite frankly, unfair by DOJ to not have corrected that, and they have finally grudgingly corrected it.

I will say that was a non-starter for me.

If they didn't change that, I would tell you don't sign this just in case we went into trouble, but we don't expect to.

We think it is a fair modification.

So is it fair to say that this allows a process now for disputes to be processed in a way where the other party has a timeline to get back?

Okay.

That's right.

They have to they have to put their position in writing and be prepared to defend that before Judge Holmes, whereas previously they could sit on their hands while our noncompliance increased every day.

Uh so it made it almost impossible for us to really pursue dispute resolution because the financial liability just kept increasing as they prevented us from getting to the judge every day.

And I like the other thing.

The second thing I liked about it was how it allows greater engineering flexibility instead of those rigid quotas yearly, allowing it to be lookout and spread, knowing that there are progress and projects that are going to be underway, and we will bring a great residual, and we may catch up on year two and a half versus meeting that on year one.

Um I like the idea of securing an 11 and a half years.

Uh I think that is important for us.

Um I did not see Mr.

Todd uh here tonight, but I do have a question uh for administration, just an update on us looking at the uh consent decree uh consulting, you know, that we were looking at.

Is there an update on that process and where staff is to secure when I think about a project this size, uh and I come back to Director Rigo's comments?

I mean, we are a part-time litigating body uh that does not do consent decree work.

Uh are we have we made progress in identifying some services that can bring in the consulting that we need?

We are going through the uh request for proposals process.

Uh in terms of the timeline for that, I don't have that committed, those dates committed to memory, but what that is in process.

I think because I think the thing I want to reiterate here is do we have the internal staffing, contractor capacity, and project management structure to really deliver on the 2038 schedule?

Because I already feel this opportunity almost where we get this and we breathe because we go, oh, we got it and it's great, and then we kinda let up for a minute, and I would like to lean into this full force, production ahead, and if we could be done by year nine, year nine, year near nine and a half.

I'd love to not get to year eleven.

Uh I'd love to see us if we have the funding mechanism, we bring the consulting, and we we take it along the way, and then my understanding, which is why I'm asking these questions is if we run into something that would lead to a change order of process, then we have an opportunity to go back being in compliance and seeing that there is a process of unforeseen things that can be disputed.

So that's my comment.

I would say I would say from the staff's perspective, there is there is no resting of the laurels.

There will be, I mean, we do intend to lean into it as you say, and uh continue the work to be done.

Well, I know that we're gonna want to hear from other colleagues, but I myself would like to see this on the agenda and I would like to move forward.

Thank you.

Director Good.

Uh yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um Director Campbell, I really enjoy your conversation, the the comments.

Uh Director Rigo, thank you.

I want to follow suit with you.

I just really wanted to say thank you.

Uh, this has been a team effort uh from the beginning.

So I want to thank the administration, uh, Aquala and others.

Uh but particularly I want to thank uh Lance McAvoy for his knowledge uh the processes of the systems and all the people involved in uh helping us get here.

Um Mr.

Calamita, I I do have a question though before I go on with my thanks.

Um because we know that relationships matter, particularly in situations like this and anything political, do you think that our relationship has improved with um ADEQ?

Yes, I I think the State has understood just how hard you all have have worked, and I know Lance in particular has extensively work with the State uh to make sure that they are satisfied with the progress and the priorities while we were out of compliance, you know, we were still trying to spend every dollar wisely.

So I think uh the entire the relationship with the state, largely due to Lance's efforts, I think is excellent.

I think our relationship with um EPA and DOJ has improved uh principally because of the board's action.

Uh the DOJ wanted to accelerate some of the sewer overflow control work as opposed to putting most of it at the back of the schedule.

And your your uh financial management plan that the board came up with and adopted that allowed the the bonding of the sales and use tax and the first hundred million that I think has been um you know issued.

So we're not resting on our laurels, there's no break.

You guys have already, I think, put a hundred million dollars out.

That was the watershed act that led to this modification.

The agencies kind of nodded and said, okay, you guys get it, you found a way.

And so the credit really goes to the board.

Also, Mayor McGill has come with us on um several meetings with the agencies, which um I I think he would have rather got a root canal uh given the grimace on the way out the door.

But uh he has uh shown up and taken some arrows for the whole board uh without complaint.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree, and thank you for your comments.

I did also want to thank Mayor McGill for his efforts as well.

Uh I remember sitting on my very first conversation, the the meeting that we had, the conference call, and how vocal you were in making sure the state knew uh our position.

But also want to thank State Representative J.

Richard J.

Richardson for his efforts in assisting us with uh our CD to get more time.

You know, we do know, again, I'll say relationships matter.

You know, these folks, like many others, have even like Director uh Christina Casables, have taken upon themselves to actually talk to individuals uh about where we are and about our concerns.

So relationships really do matter.

So not everything happens right here, but uh you did speak to, you know, you're thanking the board for our decision making.

Our decision making comes from the professionalism and knowledge of staff that's directed us where we're staff and administration as well as the mayor on how we should move forward.

So I just want to thank everyone for helping us get to where we are now, and I think we need to move forward.

Thank you.

Mayor might just jump in quick with one more thanks because we name checked a few people and the comment was brought up about the from Mr.

Calmita about the criticality of that financial plan.

Um former Director LeVon Morton, thank you, sir, for the hard work you put in uh on that and the expertise you brought to bear on that.

Thank you.

Uh Director Christina Kasavits.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thanks, Paul.

Thanks for the team.

Uh I got a couple of questions and and uh so Paul, is there anything that any provision in here that allows if a project is way over costing?

Let's say engineer estimate for a project is five million dollars, and all of a sudden the bids come in at 10 to 15 million dollars.

Is there something that says, hey, board, you we don't want to do that project now because you're gonna spend all the funds on less projects.

I mean, what I don't want to do is get down the road and we have projects that are two times or three times the engineering estimates, and then we run out of money.

Well, is there any provisions that allow us to say, hey, let's let's pause on, figure out what we do next.

Yeah, really two opportunities, because that's ha that happens all the time.

It's it's happening less, which is really nice, but every once in a while you get a project that you know you thought was you know two million dollars, and for some unique reasons, uh you know you get a bid that's eight.

And the agencies don't want you to do that project either.

If there's a way, another way to achieve the same system benefit, let's say for three million, right?

They don't want you to spend eight for the project you identified a few years ago when uh you know new engineering, new information could lead you to a three million dollar solution instead of the eight.

So generally the agencies are very good about allowing those kinds of trade-offs.

Um but all but if they didn't, if for some reason they foolishly wanted you to waste the money and do it the hard way, the non-cost-effective way, you could file uh dispute resolution and take that to Judge Holmes.

And I think Judge Holmes would probably glare at somebody and say, I really don't think this matter should be before me, Mr.

Agency, and they would get the message and probably um not require the judge to write an opinion that said that.

Okay.

Uh my next question is uh at the beginning of this document it talks about the Clean Water Act.

And there was a Supreme Court uh decision last year or the year before that says agencies no longer have the right to govern that has to be done by Congress.

So my question is if Congress changes the Clean Water Act, either make it harder or make or softer, are we st are we saying the Clean Water Act as of today is what we're following?

And if it changes, we still follow this Clean Water Act, or do we change we follow any potential future Clean Water Act changes that might occur by Congress?

The Clean Water Act prohibits raw sewage discharges.

I don't see that change.

I understand.

But if they make it stringent to where you have to meet so such a fluent numbers or something that that causes discharge or something like that, does that make it let's say it raised it would raise our consent decree by 30 percent.

I'm making some number up.

Please don't call me anybody on the internet.

Uh would are we going to be bound by the cons the Kunalwater guest today, or are any future changes to the Clean Water Act by Congress could do?

The short answer is if there's a future change, particularly one that's beneficial to you, that let's say gave you some more flexibility.

So, for example, integrated planning is in the Clean Water Act and it allows communities like Fort Smith to prioritize stormwater, wastewater, uh biosolids, uh uh reuse of effluent, it allows them to to uh prioritize.

So if let's say you had a um a significant stormwater issue, you had flooding in part of your town, and you wanted to deal with that before some of the consent decree projects, you have a right under the Clean Water Act to propose that to the agencies.

And so if that language in the Clean Water Act were expanded, for example, to include um drinking water considerations, because I know you have a lot of drinking water spending, you would have that benefit under the under this consent decree.

You could say to the agencies, the Clean Water Act has changed.

Um Congress has now said I get to uh add in my drinking water in the prioritization, and that means I want to change some of the consent decree schedules.

You would have uh right now under the Clean Water Act, you have that opportunity.

But yes, so if there is a change to the Clean Water Act that's beneficial, uh my expectation is that the agencies would uh allow you to you know they would work with you.

And if they didn't, you have your opportunity to go to Judge Holmes and ask him to uh allow them to follow the updated law.

But what you're doing here is signing a contract.

So you don't automatically get it, but in practice, the agent, if Congress has on a bipartisan basis, which they have to, has made a change, it's gonna be hard for them not to give you the benefit.

And the last thing I'll say is your congressional delegation has been really good.

They've been concerned about this.

They know it affects every citizen, and in particular Congressman Womack, because of his position on appropriations, Senator Bozeman have both been the tip of the spear for you folks and trying to get the attention of the Federal agencies that you are paddling as fast as you can, and we couldn't do it by January 127.

So the whole delegation has participated, but those two, particularly Congressman Womack has really rolled up his sleeves and and uh banged his head against the wall a little bit to your benefit.

I agree with Congressman Walmart, he's done a good job.

I I asked the question about the Clean Water Act, because it really leads me into the waters of the United States rule.

And so because the Waters United States rule was ambiguous, silly and it was interpreted by federal Federal agencies, and now because Congress says you can't do that, what changes would occur when the Waters United State rule is kind of revamped and reworded to where it's not as stringent as today, because I think that's where Congress is going to go with it.

Yeah, unfortunately that doesn't have any application here because what we're talking about is discharges of untreated sewage to surface waters.

And um, yeah, but the waters of the United States rule is inside the consent decree.

If you read it, it's in there multiple times.

So how does that change the consent decree?

I uh modification I I I I fully am on board.

I just want to know how that waters united state rule would change the language in the consent decree that we've have currently have.

Um very marginally, the waters of the United States really defines kind of uh questionable dry areas, ephemeral streams, and we're really talking about sewer overflows that are reaching surface waters that are unquestionably, even under the wildest Trump definition, they're gonna be waters of the United States.

So it it may help us on discharges that don't reach surface waters, like a basement backup or an overflow to the Walmart parking lot, but um uh it's not gonna you don't want sewage in your streams, right?

Even if we agree, we clean what yeah, we agree with that.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.

I got two other questions.

What happens if we do get con uh congressional spending directed to the city?

Let's say Congress uh allocates because they are trying to help with consent decrees, and I'll use my example in a second.

They give us, let's say 20 million dollars for 20 years.

Does that change our timeline at all if if we get congressional directed spending to help resolve the consent decree?

No, that's the great part of the deal we negotiated.

If you do get some outside help, you still have the full additional eleven and a half years.

And and more time is always good because you know, you don't know how the community is going to develop.

There's always opportunities when you do these projects to both get and give economies a scale with other things going going on.

So if we did get some outside dollars, it doesn't shrink the extension that you got.

Um I was I was actually and you could offset your rate increases.

Yeah, would it would extend time?

That's when I was more or less would it if if we did get an extension of money and time by Congress, would that extend the time at all?

If if Congress said, you know, everybody under a consent decree can have an additional five years on top of whatever schedule they have, yes, you could get that.

But um I don't envision that.

Uh uh I I do.

I think there's some stuff coming.

Uh my last two questions is part of the reopen part of our uh consent decree says we modification says we've got to do 40,000 linear feet a year.

Is that work done or work under contract?

And my question is what happens if a contract gets behind, or are we going to be deaned because somebody got behind?

So is it work under uh issued out for contract or is it work completed?

Yeah, good question.

It's work completed, and what we did was um I think it was Director Rigo mentioned that he liked that we could average over th a three-year period.

Because what happens is sometimes let's say you get a uh several floods in one year.

Your teams might be otherwise occupied and you might not hit the real average is like 50,000.

Um we we backed it down so that you could have a bad year, or you could have a year where you mobilize a contractor and you really get a lot of work done, knowing that you're gonna do less the following year.

So it gave you more flexibility and hopefully the ability to do it cheaper by having uh an average of three-year approach.

Um is there any time?

And you could have served force majeure if something happened and you didn't make the 40 through no fault of your own, like let's say you didn't get any bids, right?

You put it out, but nobody bids, you could assert a force majeure and in that circumstance I'm almost positive you'd get relief.

Um is la the last consent decree had a reopener like year six, two and a half percent medium household income, it opened a reopener.

Is there any type of reopener with extension that allows both the state and the federal and us to reopen it and do XYZ?

You know, there isn't, and the two and a half percent was catastrophic for you.

It was disastrous because nobody's rate, sewer rates are two and a half percent of their median household income uh actually.

Um it really was uh way too high.

You're you're probably between one and one point seven five at most.

Um there is no formal reopener, but there is a modification provision as well as a force majeure provision.

So if we got some kind of surprise or we had a a big flood or a tornado, uh you know, there are mechanisms within the consent decree to give you relief for not being able to meet the time frames through reasons uh that are beyond your control.

Okay.

The last comment I have is um I just hope the uh PAD question and realizes that we've done everything we can.

And we recently with the DC spill of 200 million gallons.

Sale that again.

Thank you.

So hope that everybody's watching from DLP DOJ DPA.

Everybody knows DC just had a 200 million gallon sewage spill in the Potomac.

And so and it's still going on today.

And so hope that any type of penalties in the past will go away and we can start fresh.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

We'll go to Director Christine Cassavage, Director Rigo and then George.

Well, um I I was going to talk about that two and a half percent of medium household income.

You know, we're deleting Article 9.

We lose that ability to file that updated financial capability analysis.

Should we not retain some sort of mechanism like that if we need it?

Because I think about the cost of goods is going up, interest rates fluctuate, um, our revenues fluctuate.

Uh uh this new agreement feels more restrictive.

And I would say, you know, no one here is against clean water.

I would not consider myself a part-time politician.

I would say I'm a full-time public servant.

So I just want to make sure we get this right.

I'm happy that we've been given this extra time, but I want to make sure that this new agreement isn't so restrictive because my understanding was when you signed a contract, it's legally binding.

So I just want to make sure we get it right before we enter into another agreement that you know it outlines three and a half percent increase as your baseline.

That that's not a cap.

It seems like there is no cap, right, under this agreement.

Am I understanding that correctly?

Yes, so two separate questions.

The first is the original agreement said only when your sewer rates are two and a half percent of median household income, can you get an extension?

And that extension is no more than five years.

It set a very high bar uh that you're never going to reach going forward.

Your sewer rates will never be two and a half percent.

A two percent would be tough.

Um I'm happy that that provision has gone away, and now you have a consent decree that's consistent with just about everybody else that allows you to propose modifications and to seek judicial review if the agencies don't give you a modification.

Um that's number one.

And then the three and a half percent of rates is a minimum uh based on your financial planning.

We don't think you're gonna have to go above the three and a half percent because of what you and the citizens have done on the sales and use tax, which is a really smart way, it's the most cost-effective way for people to fund this program.

Um, but the three and a half, if we do get much higher costs uh and the agencies don't uh give you additional time, you will have to raise rates above three and a half percent.

But but based on what we know now, we don't think that's the case, and we're hoping inflation is reducing going forward.

So what if modeling standards change and reveal additional deficiencies and we're ha we have more work that's piled on to us in this same time frame?

I mean, uh uh that's a concern.

What would rates look like then?

That's one of the things I'm worried about.

Right.

So the strategy is once we get this modification to have a couple of good years where we we meet all our deadlines.

In fact, we get ahead of the deadlines, and so effectively we're banking a few days, so that if we get some surprises, we go back to EPA on a much different footing, a footing of full compliance, and it makes it easier for them to work with us and give us additional time because there's additional work.

Um that would be my expectation, they would work with you.

If they don't, then you have the opportunity to declare a force majeure.

Um Director Settle said, you know, if a $2 million project becomes an $8 million project, I think that's a force majeure event.

And I think Judge Holmes would kind of look at that and say, yeah, four times the cost, that's not something that any either party expected that the program would be four times higher.

So uh there are mechanisms in the consent decree to address financial uh difficulties going forward, but at the same time, the agencies don't want a paper cut.

They don't want you coming to them when it gets a little difficult or the hill gets a little steeper.

It's got to be a pretty significant hit for them to want to give you additional time.

Do you think the agencies have a deep understanding of these rates?

The cost of this, the burden of the cost is beared by people with a median household income of under $55,000 a year.

That's who bears the cost of this.

Do you think they have a deep understanding of that?

They generally want to stay as far.

They generally want to stay as far what you should understand is when you sign this modification, which I will urge you to authorize Jeff to sign it, it will become your program and your schedule, and they will say it's up to you on how you finance it, right?

They don't want to in any way have their fingerprints on however you choose to finance it.

And I don't believe they really understand what it is like to be in your shoes to have to deal with the poor poor uh the low and fixed income folks in your community have to bear these burdens.

Um but uh you know the that's just the way it is.

We we've negotiated a deal that I do believe is fair in terms of time and it's the right technical work, because everybody agreed we didn't want sewage in our streets or on our streams.

And so based on what we know now, and maybe with a little margin, we we think we can implement this, but if we run into trouble, uh you absolutely should stand up on behalf of those low and fixed income rate payers in particular and yell to anybody who will listen.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I was just gonna uh say the thanks that I said a few minutes ago to Director Morton.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Director George Cassette.

Hey, Paul, let me ask you this.

This 11 and a half years, who how did you all come to that time?

That amount of time.

Well, we We started at Judge Holmes five years, which the prior DOJ lawyer again didn't want to give us unless we compress the whole program into those five years, which we knew we couldn't.

We couldn't technically we couldn't do the work.

Like we couldn't sequence the construction, and we sure didn't have the money to do that.

So we started at five years, and we were really looking for, you know, uh longer.

But what I'm saying is uh are you if we sign this and in 11 and a half years we're not done, what happens?

So the 11 and a half years, uh I I we didn't pull it out of the air.

Lance laid out a technical program of of you know how he would do the work.

You know, what was a uh a pace of work that we could manage uh in terms of number of projects, cost of projects that our contractors that the local contracting community could manage.

So there was a lot of very detailed analysis by us and the agencies about what work could be done, particularly when we got the F 35.

I'm still very jealous of the mayor's pen.

He hasn't sent me one, but uh you know, we knew there were other things going on, so there's a lot of technical evaluation of what work could we deliver.

And then secondly, there was a financial evaluation driven by your sales and use tax and your rate increases as to what that work would cost and what the spend would be.

And that's how we ended up at 11 and a half years.

We the agencies would have liked eight.

Uh and the extra three and a half years really mattered, and we were we were willing to stand our ground for it, and I think they recognize that we've made a good case for that time and gave it to us.

Okay, so what would you come up with cost?

What's the good cost of for 11 and a half years?

Has that been figured?

I'm gonna have to defer to Lance on that.

Um, up for 600 million, 700 million, eight hundred million, a billion with effect effective inflation.

I just like to know.

800 million.

So we're gonna be borrowing.

My understanding is that includes the 200 million already performed from all the way back to two.

So we will be borrowing money.

We're gonna be either raising rights or borrowing more money down the road.

We're gonna have to borrow another 300 million.

That's right.

Which the 1 percent sales tax is for 30 years to to be able to allow for that.

So we'll have to bond out more dollars.

Or raise rates.

Or raise rates.

Uh but bonding it out is the although I'm I'm not a huge fan of debt, but it's I would rather do that than than raise rates.

I know.

So there's no tell.

I mean, uh there's no telling what somebody's water bill is going to be in ten years, is there a SIR bill?

Uh well.

I mean, there's there's a lot of variables there, isn't there?

I mean, i i we I think we're in a situation where we've got to really monitor it.

Uh the seven of us have got to really monitor it.

And we know we know what it's doing to people.

Um, yes, because yeah.

You're right.

And so, you know, hopeful uh uh the I I think the the bond dollars sh should should complete it.

We've got you know if if we've got this um this engineering firm to come in to to do the program management of the consent decree.

I think you know I said 100 million, give me a hundred million dollars.

Meaning save me a hundred million.

I don't know if that's reasonable.

But um, you know, I think we've got to throw everything at it ingenuity-wise to keep that cost where we're at.

But you're right, George.

I I mean we're we're uh we're throwing we're putting dollars to it.

Yeah.

I know.

Which is ultimately what it needs.

And I mean I c I don't know what ten years is going to look like from now.

I really don't.

It's kind of scary, really.

It really is.

I agree with you.

All right.

Thank you, Paul.

Okay, thank you.

Any more comments or questions from the board?

I'd like to make a motion that we put this on the next regular meeting.

Second.

Thank you.

Um excuse me, I'm not feeling well, so I'm gonna send myself out.

Thank you.

It will.

We'll go to item number two.

Thank you, Paul.

Um thank you, Paul.

Thank you.

Okay.

Item two this evening is a discussion regarding possible reinstatement of mosquito fogging operations by the public works department.

The city performed this function for many years, but discontinued the program in 2025 due to budgetary considerations at the time.

Over the years, there has been discussion on both sides of this issue.

Some residents favor the program for control of nuisance and potential disease-carrying mosquitoes, while others contend that the chemicals used have detrimental effects on residents, pets, pollinators, or the environment in general.

Board members have recently received feedback from residents regarding discontinuing the program and requested the study session discussion.

At this point, I'll introduce Matt Meeker, Director of Public Works, for any additional comments before turning the to the board's discussion.

Mr.

Meeker.

I I'm just here to help facilitate the discussion and answer any questions you have, and we're, you know, whatever the board decides, we're willing to I mean we're willing to do that.

So Matt Director Rigo.

Thank you, Mayor.

And Matt, uh, I do want to say, and I hope um my colleagues got a chance to read it.

I do appreciate the additional contextual information um that was provided, um, you know, facts, figures, feedback, uh statistics, etc.

Um.

So just as grist for the mill of the discussion, and I know uh very much so uh that this was something that was discontinued by uh a four to two to one abstention uh vote la uh ten months ago.

Uh I was in the two that was against, but I just you know I appreciated uh Director George Kitsavis uh mentioning it the other day and and us having the opportunity to have a conversation about it again, because I'll just say for context, in those last ten months, the two things that I have heard absolutely positively the most feedback about were bringing the spay and neuter ordinance uh work back, which we did uh last week.

And number two, and not too far behind is some version of what the heck happened, where the mosquito spray go, the mosquitoes are worse than they've ever been.

We need to talk about bringing this back again.

So I understand that uh it's a decision that we'll make and that good people uh have different opinions on this topic.

Um I think it's something we should seriously consider bringing back, even if it's just in a um more targeted or or opt-in basis.

I think unilaterally sort of disarming the fight that we had uh since you know uh we landed on the moon against the mosquitoes.

I don't think that's sustainable moving forward.

Um and I do want to point out uh from the statistics in the very thorough email that Matt sent us that in the lucid E system uh since 2019, the the comments and the things that that he's heard uh back were 36 requests to stop spraying, but 372 requests for spraying in specific areas.

So again, I understand and appreciate uh folks have differences on this and uh and good folks uh have honest disagreements about it, and that's okay.

I just think we really truly can't completely abandon trying to do something meaningful uh to address the mosquito population.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Joashka Savage.

Okay, Matt, what uh I can't, yeah.

It's put it closer.

So Director Rigo managed in targeted areas?

I'm sorry, what's it?

He mentioned targeted areas for spraying.

What what areas would that be to you?

Targeted areas around the river.

Well uh I I I think what it was uh referring to, and please correct me if I'm wrong was was the the areas where we had requests from individuals.

And so it was individuals that had called in and requested us to spray.

But Matt, I think to the Director George's question, if I may could you articulate sort of what the zones or what the policy was before it was discontented, is that what you're asking, George?

Yeah, I mean yes, we I mean we had four.

We were doing citywide spraying at one time, right?

Yes, yeah.

We had you know five separate zones and then we sprayed sprayed them twice a week.

Yeah.

And we had the schedule I sent out to y'all with with the maps and everything with the schedule.

And so when we had two trucks available, but it uh we haven't had since July of 21, we've not been able to fill two positions.

We've only been able to fill one.

Uh of course there are seasonal positions.

It's just we don't get a lot of uh we don't get a lot of interest in those species.

So from 21 to 25, there was a single spraying truck rather than two.

Correct.

Okay.

It's just because we couldn't get another person to fill that second position.

So somebody calls in and say, I'm Libby Hill Crest, and we've got a mosquito problem, you know, spray that area.

We not any more, right?

Not even a lot of people.

Oh, not anymore, yeah.

I know.

But I mean if we we we did, and we we had we ran a regular schedule, and if we had uh an area where we had uh where we were seeing a lot of significant complaints or a number of complaints, we would we might go out and say, hey, on this night, go ahead and hit this here.

But we can't we can't do that a bunch because you don't want to and and we mix as I you saw in the email you looking at that, we mix fairly weak uh just for the standpoint so we don't overdose an area.

Right, you know.

Um I really don't have a problem with that targeted or spraying at all.

Well it's up to the rest of the board.

I don't know what they want to do, what your hope stops are.

All right, Andrew.

I think Director Kemp was next in the queue.

Did you want to make some comments, Director?

Uh just a simple comment.

Okay.

Director, direct camp you recognize.

I'll defer to Director Good.

Go ahead.

I just wanted to um I guess gonna answer uh Director George Sabbath.

Um I'm absolutely for bringing this back, uh being one of the two votes that wanted to keep it in the first place.

Okay.

Uh Matt, my question, uh thank you for your time.

Appreciate you and your department, what y'all are doing.

Um just confirming, and I already checked on this, but I just think it's worth asking.

You're able to reinstate this and maintain a balanced budget for your department, correct?

Yes, yeah.

And we already had some funds budgeted for it, and we've still got we've still got chemical left over.

Uh and I mean it's still good.

It hadn't gone bad.

We've still got chemical left over, so we've got enough to get us probably through most of this season.

Yeah.

Uh so we we'll definitely need to buy some more chemical at the end of this season, so we have something to start with next year.

Yeah, and I remember my comments were, you know, just hang on to the truck and let's see what the feedback of the community is.

I know we did get quite a bit of feedback uh about people wondering why we took it away, and then they were saying that it wasn't even just even mosquitoes, it was just a whole bunch of insects that just seemed to flare up over the over the season.

If we have another wet summer, because we also had a wet summer that we battled, uh do you do you adjust your schedule within that regard?

Does the rain affect the effectiveness of it?

No, I mean it doesn't generally affect our schedule other than like I said, if we get a uh a lot of calls on, you know, or several calls in a specific area, we may try to uh concentrate some more spraying in a particular area if we have a really bad problem.

But um uh you know honestly going twice a week in a zone is generally sufficient.

Yeah.

And then the other one was I just saw the email, and then I know none of us here are medical experts.

I was just sitting here thinking about I was unaware that there had been 21 cases reported in Sebastian County since 1999 of the West Nile virus, but there are people that go on mission trips and I know people have compassionate causes.

I mean, is it that's not necessarily attributing to that to mosquitoes per se?

Is it I mean, do do we do we think that that was because of mosquitoes in our area?

Uh yes.

I mean that that was the information was from the CDC, so I, you know, if what I took it on those is that was all that uh that was um from this area and I now I guess back uh uh when I had looked at some of their data, and I don't remember the the year off the top of my head.

There's a there's a point there where they uh they started testing, doing I think uh further testing on the on the uh from uh uh I guess a DNA standpoint to tell like where it where everything is coming from, but I don't remember what year that is, so that they started that.

So but overall, when this program was implemented, is it was it safe to say you have data that could say that this is effective?

And that's why it stayed in existence over the years.

I don't feel like I can say it that it whether it's necessarily effective or not.

Okay.

Well perhaps we evaluate go forward, thank you.

Director Neil Martin.

Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.

Do we have any data that shows that this is effective?

And I I don't think there is.

You you you you just you just said it.

I spoke to an infectious disease doctor um in the area.

And just quoting him.

Um I don't know that he had said he didn't know that he had seen an increase in mosquito-borne illnesses in Arkansas.

Um with that being said, diseases spread by mosquitoes uh have to have very specific tests that take several days to come back and are not routinely tested in hospitals.

So they don't know.

They don't know.

Um most of the time, uh the individual just if they have a mosquito-borne illness, they get better, it might not even go to the doctor.

So you there's really no data that tells you whether we're whether we're whether we have an issue.

I I you know, and I know that we've got people that say that they want it or uh or not.

Um I've heard that it kills other insects, bees, those things that that maybe hunt uh mosquitoes.

Um, we we put uh we put bird feeders in the in the backyard to uh to you know to to attack it.

Um but you know, I'm I because I don't have data, because we don't have data, we don't know the effectiveness of this.

If we could get it, that'd be awesome.

I'd love to be able to do it.

But I feel like we're you you I don't feel like there's good data out there in a rival.

So it and and I mean we're talking 70,000.

I mean, uh I get it.

But um I I would I'm I was against it then, I'm still against it now.

Um but if we could have the data, I'd sure like to I'd sure like to be able to prove it out and say, yeah, we need to go ahead and do this.

But I think there's some ancillary things that are not ancillary, there's there's other things that uh that are uh potentially impacted by this, not just the mosquito.

So that's kind of where I'm at.

I'm I'm welcome, you know, it all you guys listening and watching, tell me send me information I want to know about it.

Um but that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Direct settle.

Uh thank you, though.

One thing I've heard from my in-laws is this.

You know, and so happy wife, happy in-laws, I gotta listen to them.

So uh Matt, the only thing I would ask is if if we do reinstate this, some of the concerns I've heard is they don't know when it's going to happen.

Is there any type of schedule we could put out there that says, hey, we're gonna be in this zone on this date, kind of like the trash pickup and so that way people want to put their animals in or they want to take some provisions, not have kids out there, they could do that.

That would be up to them to choose.

I think if there is more communication that says here's the schedule, here's what we're gonna be doing in a non-called, hey, we got a big influx here, but on a this is the normal schedule we're gonna follow.

I I think the public would uh appreciate that in that way they could if they choose not to have their kids out when this happens, or uh you know it's mostly at night, but there's people that you know in the summer people play till 9 30-10 outside with kids and they know they're gonna be spraying on X day in their area, they could hey let's put I mean the kids if they choose to do that or they want to bring their animals in.

So I would ask that if this board continues to move forward with this, which I think probably we will, we put some schedule out there and give it to the public so that way they they know what's coming, they can choose what to do during that time.

Well, and I I think if we bring it that back, one of the things we would be doing is is uh one of the things I would changes I would want to make is run a shift later at night.

So traditionally they always started at seven, and that's just the way it'd been done.

It's one of those things it's like that's the way we've done it for years, you know, and and honestly, I mean, people especially in the summertime, people are still out then and we could we could uh help eliminate uh a lot of the conflict, say if we moved it to 10 as a start time.

So like would you like Sunday night through Thursday?

Is that what you're thinking?

Only Friday and Saturdays open or is it?

Yeah, yeah, it goes Sunday through Thursday.

So Friday night and Saturday night we always take off.

So people that want to stay outside and barbecue or have a adult beverage by the fire, they could.

Yes.

Just trying to think.

I think something like that in a schedule would would probably calm a lot of concerns people have.

Thank you.

Director Good.

Thanks, Mayor.

Just a couple of comments.

Um talking about data.

Um are we talking about the infectious disease data?

Are we just talking about mosquito bites?

Are we talking about people complaining about uh water ponding and mosquitoes, infestation?

Are we talking about pets being bitten and heartworm?

I mean, what are we talking about?

Because we know that all these are factors.

That's a good question.

I'm I'm with you.

What I'm saying is if we're talking about data, I mean, people's perceptions are the reality.

I mean, people get m mosquito bitten, dogs, pets get heartworm.

I mean, we know that we are doing better with water leaks, but water leaks still pond water.

Um, ran into one the other day.

That's not even a water leak, it's apartments, I believe has a sewer issue.

And the water is just running down the street.

So I mean, these are our issues to consider when we're talking about spraying.

So we just can't just look at data for disease, human disease.

Well, I mean, if uh uh I I don't I don't know how to quantify it, I guess is the thing.

I uh uh the number of times I get bitten.

I don't know.

I just that's that's just kind of where I'm at.

The question I have, Director Martin is why do you seek quantification for a restoration of a program, but you you discontinued a program without any quantification of the good it may have been doing.

It I mean, it was a m a money-saving opportunity.

Um, you know, we were we were looking at budget cuts, and that was one that there wasn't any data around it.

Um so it's felt to me it was an easy an easy decision.

Thank you for that clarification.

Director Rigo?

Okay.

Any other comments?

I think the only comment I would have is I do want to go back and I'll just confirm it.

Your department didn't necessarily need that 10 percent cut back to be balanced, but that you you offered this up because everyone was doing it and being a team player.

That was part of it.

That was part of your part of the yeah.

That was part of how you got part of the cut that we we were yeah, we had to cut.

So, yeah.

Because there wasn't too much to trim in your thing besides operationally that you needed to do that.

Right, there wasn't really a big need for us to to make those cuts.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I I'd like to make a motion to have this included for our consideration on the second voting meeting in March.

I guess that's the 17th.

Um so that that way folks can have uh an additional uh number of weeks to share their feedback with us.

And please, Matt, if there's anything more, again, your email was very thorough.

I encourage uh the folks to read it uh on my colleagues on the board if they haven't yet.

But if there's any other additional info you'd like for us to know or be aware of, Matt, uh, between now and the 17th, I think that would be um appreciated and helpful.

So that's the motion I make for the 17th.

I'll second.

Okay.

Thank you.

Also have a comment?

Comment?

I'm a question.

Matt, so uh while we had a meeting, we had a uh email come through, a lady wanted to opt out.

So for an individual to opt out, they just make a phone call.

That's a good idea.

You know what that brings up uh uh an important point that I would like to ask because uh the one of the most difficult things for us every year on this is the people that do not want us to spray.

And it always becomes an argument and then trying to uh you know, i i if we stop one play, I mean we literally run into this where you got somebody here that doesn't want us to spray, but then somebody next door to them, it's like I've overrun with mosquitoes, I need to be sprayed, you know.

And uh then, you know, you try to stop and start, and you really gotta start, you know, stop like one house uh ahead and stop one house beyond and and people get mad because we're not spraying by them and they said, well, your neighbor wanted us to opt out.

Uh and also we run into the thing about with our drivers trying to, and that's where we tried one year, you know, we tried putting out signs about you know where to start and stop spraying, is because the driver we we couldn't keep them they they would be spraying areas all the time they weren't supposed to be spraying, and we'd be getting angry phone calls, you know, you sprayed my area, I've told you three times not to spray, you know.

Uh I would prefer if we were going to go back to do this to say we're spraying everything.

We're just we're we're spraying it.

You know, we're going by the street twice a week during the season.

That's up to the board.

If y'all want us to make exceptions and stuff and let people call in and say, I don't want to get sprayed, we'll still try to do our best on it, but we're just still going to have those types of interactions.

My my simple working answer, if I may add intercept on this was if if you don't do this one street, but you're doing the entire block around it, you can almost just say mosquitoes are going to be effectively trapped away from that street versus trying to stop and start at one house right after the other house.

If if the board so chooses direct, I I'm I don't have I'm neutral here.

But if if there's one person, then just don't do the street.

But if you've done all the other streets around it, I mean we're treating mosquitoes regardless as a working answer.

And as a interesting thought, Director Camp.

The other question or clarification I had is um when the program was underway, uh, did our parks and our parks and public spaces fell under the zones that were treated, correct?

Uh or was it strictly residential streets?

Uh they're in the zones, but no, we didn't normally spray those unless there was uh, you know, we had a request or something from White's Parks Department and said, hey, we've got a problem down here, and then you know, we pull in the parking lot and spray.

Yeah.

Because that's that's something to consider over the next few weeks as we're contemplating this is a a huge amount of the feedback I was receiving was as a result of spending a ton of time out in these public spaces where a lot of people are coaching two baseball teams, being involved with soccer, and you just have tons of people congregating in these spaces getting bit up saying, hey, you're you know, you're with the city, what's going on here?

Is it they're still spraying for this stuff?

Are they not spraying for this stuff?

They should bring that back.

If they're not, et cetera, et cetera.

And so as we think about this, I mean, I think we need to kind of contemplate uh some options for at least periodic treatment of those large uh this public spaces where lots of people uh congregate.

Yeah, that that's a fair comment.

And the other thing I would say, you know, in the time since we have uh stopped the spring, we still have continued with larvacide uh pellets and such for those and and really on publicly owned city-owned parks and those social spaces, in addition to maybe targeting areas when we know there's going to be congregations.

We can all we also can still continue to maintain the larvacide program to try to keep it down from that side too.

Oh, certainly.

I mean, I this uh my stance is not anti-larvicide or or anti.

I mean, it this is a uh I would say probably an all all arrows in the quiver kind of uh uh approach.

You know, uh there's no one single thing that's gonna um make the outdoor spaces more tolerable.

Okay, thank you.

Would this be operational?

Would this become out of operational budget or street fund?

Okay.

We had a motion.

We get a second.

Okay, thank you.

I've got item number three.

That's right.

Trying to get ahead of us, Mayor.

I'm trying to jump.

Item three is a review of the City of Fort Smith fiscal performance policies, which was requested by the board.

These policies are codified in the Fort Smith Municipal Code in Section 2-166, and a copy of the section was included in the board's agenda packet.

Chief Financial Officer Andy Richards will address any questions from the board regarding these policies and also has some historical information related to the city's fund balances over the last several years.

Mr.

Richards.

Yeah.

So part of this uh request for the board to review the fiscal policies was also to have an opportunity to look at the historical information about the four operating funds.

So I'll uh present that to you uh at first so you can we can talk about that, but then um I'll take whatever questions you all have about the actual policies that was included in the in the uh board packet.

So we went back and pulled information.

I think the request is to go back to 2010.

Um we pulled that information out of the the uh the annual audit of financial statements for the general fund and the street maintenance fund.

And we're able to pull that.

The uh the working capital computations that are done for water and sewer fund and sanitation, we weren't able to get those out of the audits because of the way the presentation of those funds is different than how we budget and what we look at on a quarterly basis uh for the operating funds for solid waste and sanitation or uh water and sewer.

So that's that's because they're they follow full accrual accounting or considered enterprise funds charging rates for services.

So that those are uh different kinds for differently in the annual financial statement.

So we do have eight years of information for working capital for water sewer and solid waste.

That's coincides with us converting to uh the Munis ERP system.

So that's the uh that's as far back that as we went so we could get down to the actual accounts and the count balances and calculate those working capital.

Um I thought it was relevant to adjust if we're going back 15 years.

I thought it was relevant to adjust everything into today's dollars.

So we can uh you know, take the impact of inflation over time out of this trend.

So everything's been adjusted in today's dollars, and you can see you know, we've got I think one you know, one question was like I'm looking at the general fund here, the reserve percentages and fund balance over time.

Uh you can see back in 2010, we were at a low of twin uh uh 18 percent and 11, 21 percent in 2010.

And that is um, you know, that that's the lowest it looks like over the last 15 years.

Yeah, we are nine percent down in two thousand nine.

Dre knows that.

Remember those days.

And so um in 25, you know, we have we had some really good years in 2021, 22, 23.

So you know the the graph at the bottom, you know, the bars show what the fund balance level was during those time frames, the blue and red line graphs above that show the revenues and expenditure levels during those years.

So like I said this has been adjusted for inflation.

So over time you know we've made maintain a fairly consistent level of of revenues and expenses over time.

So I think service levels are relatively consistent but fund balance we've been maintaining a healthier fund balance over the past few years.

Street maintenance fund I said we've got 15 years there we're at 73 percent reserve percentage and you know back in 2010, 2011 we're at 50 percent, 41 percent dropped down to 22 percent and 13.

But over the last few years we've been maintaining reserve percentages uh way above annual expenditures uh made some efforts to spin down some of our these are restricted funds strictly for uh street maintenance sidewalks traffic signals et cetera so we've made a concerted effort to spend some of those funds down we're down to 73 percent and 25.

Then looking at water and sewer um you know we were at reserve percentages back in 18 and 19 33 percent 32 um we're at 34 percent in 24 but we've been able to with the rate increases we've been able to uh get the working capital back up to about 48 percent and you can see the level of revenues and expenditures um adjusted for a flesh and over time been fairly consistent um over there and you can see on 25 you know we've we're starting to build up a little bit more funds um to help us with you know maintain debt service levels and and help with uh capital maintenance et cetera I do think those 2018 numbers might be a little bit skewed you see those are if you look at the revenues and expenditures about 74 billion adjusted for inflation 71 million expenditures compared to 19 was 61 64 uh might need to go back and revise those numbers because my I think the 18 numbers is when we uh if I remember right that's when that first bond went out for the consent decree work right so I do think I do think there was an uh higher level of revenues and expenses in 18 but I don't think to that level.

I think there might have been some transfers a mont around and in and out related to the bond issue that might be skewing those figures.

That had been the second or third year of the new sewer rate at that point I think so you know I think over time it looks like we're maintaining you know fairly healthy um reserves and you know maintaining revenues and expenditures at a consistent level you know over the trends.

The last one is solid waste eight years of uh history there we had a reserve ending capital of 116 percent in 18 um we've had we had a buildup of funds you if you notice in the graph there that spike in the expenditures that's related to about a 10 million dollar transfer into the equipment sinking fund to help fund future um equipment expand you know expand our capital and maintain our capital program so uh that's why there's a spike in 21 notice there was it was about twice as much as what we normally would transfer in a given year and that kind of coincides with you see you know our reserve percentages were high levels back in 18 and 19 and 20 and then 21 drops down because we shifted some of those reserves over for capital purposes.

Revenues in 25 I've estimated right now actually down a little bit if you see that from 23 million showing in 24 and 21 million there by all accounts I think that's related to the sale of methane gas or bethane gas sales and then also the revenue at the land flow operations.

But I did note that there is you see kind of a downtick in revenues from 24 to 25, and then that appears to be what it's related to.

But the ending uh reserve is about 45 percent and 25 for solid waste.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any questions for Andy?

Director Settle.

Uh Andy, thank you very much for putting this together.

I I'm the one who asked for this.

Can we see these same charts where we don't adjust for inflation?

Because I I pulled up the 2012 budget and you know, we were at three or four million dollars of fund balance for general funds.

So I think having uh inflation kind of it normalizes it out and looks at the trends and I like that, but I'd like to see what it would be what it was back in the day, last 15 years and see what it is.

Um for that, uh the you know, the policies I wanted the board to just you know re have again.

Uh that's what we codified in our policies back in the day when uh different directors are here, and so let's just follow those policies.

I think we are.

Um so I just appreciate putting this together.

But I see in the trend is showing me where we're at, but uh adjustment relations one thing, but let's I want to see what the actual dollars are when we're all said and done.

So thank you, Mayor.

Director, would you go?

Thank you.

So Director Settle, this was just a uh look and a review, you didn't have any specific uh changes to the policy that you wanted us to contemplate.

Yeah, I do have one of contemplating.

I think we should do something on the upper end.

On the upper end, you know, the upper end.

When you when you get too much of a fund balance.

Remember, these are people are people are paying sales tax dollars expecting services to be done.

Yep.

And what I don't want to get into is where it this isn't, you know, some people want to treat this as uh a savings account.

People don't pay sales tax or dollars in to save for a what if.

They want to see us spend it on roads, water, sewer, parks, tr transit, you know, police, fire.

That's what they want us to spend it on.

So I think there should be a cap.

This is if you don't spend a certain per if you get a certain percentage, either you spend it or we're going to reduce taxes.

And I truly believe there should be some number.

That way, this board feature boards don't get into the point where you save, say, save, because the the people are paying this taxes expect services to be done.

Improved police protection, include fire protection, improved parks, transit services, water and sewer.

So I I think there should be some numbers.

Is it 50, 60 percent number that says if you're above that number, either you spend it on what you need to be spending on, or you cut taxes somehow.

Yeah.

I would agree with that completely.

So what you're saying is the way it would be rewritten would be instead of just putting a floor of you know 20 percent, you know, if you go below 20 percent, you have to do XYZ.

You also would potentially want us to consider a ceiling so that effectively you had a range.

Yeah, a range, and that way it would it would it would make future boards holding those policies so that way they can't just save, save, save and not spend because people want those services.

And I you know, I look at the general fund.

If you got, let's say you go up to 70 percent for a couple of two years, rolling two years, then that should trigger us to saying we're gonna cut property tax by a percent.

If you're not gonna spend it, we're gonna cut property tax so that kind of what Paul talked about when we had, you know, either you do it or we're gonna do something and we're gonna cut we're gonna cut people's property tax so that way they save their money and not have to save it.

We're not gonna save it on the back end for for somebody just for whatever.

Yeah.

I think that's a very good idea.

And I I would also like to see some uh options for us to look at as far as how the policy could be uh adjusted to reflect Director Settle's idea.

I mean, I I think it should be like a rolling two years.

You can't just do it one year.

You gotta if you don't do something over two years.

And at that point it might say, hey, we're above a certain percentage, and the board chooses that we can buy new police cars, we can add people, we can uh new you know, uh fire trucks, we can improve a park uh equipment, we can uh add more transit services.

I'm looking at general fund, but the water and sewers should follow the same way.

Sanitation is follow the same way.

All of them should follow the same way.

If there's above a certain threshold, it's going to trigger us to do something, or we're going to cut taxes in those funds.

Okay.

Thank you.

You know, I I I wouldn't mind looking at rebates back to the citizens.

I mean, you talk about cut of taxes.

That's what I'm looking at.

I mean, we're we're talking about uh water, and you know, we we've we've had a big contention about um 40 percent of our water is being used by cities outside of us.

Um I wouldn't necessarily have a have an issue with I mean if if we have 29,000 residential meters and we remitted 100 bucks back to everybody a year, it's three million bucks, 2.9 million dollars.

Um, I would be I would be very open to doing something like that.

If you are above a certain percent, if you're above a certain I that's I think I think there should be an upper.

I think the lower we've got pretty good.

I think that there's that's a pretty good spot.

I think the upper is where I think we should really focus on and do something that way.

You know, you don't get some of the numbers we had for unjustification, you know, 60, 70 percent fund balance.

You know, some of that was ARPA funds, some of that was COVID funds, since there might be uh a way you can rewrite the policy if you get federal directed spending, you could offset it.

But if it's strictly citizens putting in the funds to do it, we should have to we need to spend it on what they say we should spend it on.

And I think uh rewriting it to highlight uh that there are some upper end thresholds.

I think just in general, and this is a good thing raises awareness about the general awareness of exist of the existence of reserve funds, because your point was a very salient one about you know, pe people, I don't think it's generally well understood that millions of dollars of the taxes that people pay every year go into what amount to savings accounts.

You need them, you need the floor, you need to have the contingency funds.

But there are some years.

I mean, if if if I I'm almost certain that if there's any project that anyone within the sound of my voice has disagreed with uh spending associated with it over the last five to ten years, that spending has come out of uh in almost every uh case a contingency reserve fund.

And so the more that people have an awareness about it driven by things like uh adding caps and things like that, I think just uh contributes overall to um uh uh uh uh financial uh awareness uh in the city of how the money is utilized and spent, and I think that's a good thing.

Can you go to the street fund?

The slide on the street fund.

I think this is the best example I have that possible.

Right there.

I mean, if you look at the street fund back in 2021-2022, we are 140 percent.

You know, that's the gas tax.

But I think at that point I remember we had some discussions and that allowed us to buy more snow removal equipment that allowed us to do the things, and it brought that number down.

And that we did that on purpose to bring that we are still at 70 percent.

We're still at a high number, but that's only you know eight million dollars in reserve.

So it's a little it's a little difference.

But I I think those are the policies we should do.

Maybe streets is a little different than general, maybe water and series will be different.

Well, but I think there should be a capital on each of the four funds.

That that's my thought.

I like I am wondering if there if these are state turn back funds if that limits us to being able to.

But maybe that what that triggers is we can do more sidewalk work.

Or we can go and do other work.

Yeah.

Matt's team.

I was going to say roundabouts, but I know Matt didn't like that, so I was kidding.

So I was just a joke.

Please take that as a joke.

But striping trucks, you know, we took striping on to help save money.

We have saved us some money.

Sure.

So it could help us do stuff.

So I maybe the four funds are four different numbers, but I think there should be an upper cap.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other comments on that item?

Do we need to take any action on that?

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, I guess would you go back, come up with a plan and bring back to a study session to the board with maybe an updated with the actual numbers, and we can revisit that, look at that, and then maybe that triggers us to throw it on a study session in the future.

Uh uh board action in the future.

Bring it back to the study session with some suggestions.

Yeah, I'd say it's okay.

Thank you.

Why don't we take that 10 minute uh recess and we'll come back and finish up?

I don't think so.

And the kids from the benefit.

Oh, yeah, I think we're talking about it.

I think you're absolutely on a program.

Yes, I have to do that.

Yeah, it's business.

Yeah.

Uh people can use their own bug spray.

Um whatever.

I mean, this guy said there's no data.

He didn't even sound too intrigued in it.

I mean, these guys are getting played.

Yeah.

I mean, they could try I wouldn't want to fix it.

Yeah.

It's gonna pass.

It's gonna pass.

It's been disappearing.

So I'm only it's legalized.

They're new.

I want this.

But I don't think it's probably gonna be a good thing.

I don't have to go.

I thought you were as well.

Yeah.

Oh really?

Oh, really?

We're going to reconvene.

Mr.

Mayor.

Mayor.

Just something really brief.

I just want to say I I had a comment I wanted to share, and this is the first time I believe I've seen all the candidates that I have noticed running for various offices here in attendance at the same time.

And I intended to say this during the director's forum comments at the end of the meeting last week.

I just want to say, even though there may be disagreements amongst us, welcome each of you all into the participatory process.

You're taking a step, each of you that are running for office, that ninety-nine percent of citizens don't ever ultimately take in their life.

That's no matter how no matter how your candidacies go, and that includes our friends here on the board that are also running for re-election.

You're participating in a process, and thank you for doing that.

And welcome to the field, uh the field and being in the arena and the Teddy Roosevelt quote.

That's all different uh than as I'm sure even realizing now.

So uh like I say, we probably differ on a lot of things, but welcome into this portion of civic life.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

We will go to item number four.

Thank you, Mayor.

Item four tonight is a discussion requested by the board regarding audit provisions and third-party service provider contracts.

The two most obvious contracts are the management agreements for the water park and the convention center, both of which have audit provisions in those agreements.

Um they both have third-party operators of city-owned assets.

However, the city does also engage in a limited number of public services agreements with local entities for provision of public services on the city's behalf.

Some examples of those include the Animal Haven for Animal Shelter Services and the SRCA and the Area Agency on Aging for Senior Citizen Services.

Any comment?

And then here in the per there's a provision in the contract with the convention center to audit, I think we should follow the same procedures and audit the convention center.

We give 750,000 or 600,000, sure, but we give every year $750,000 to the convention center.

And there was no discussions about that at all during this whole looking at the water park audits, but yet we do a one one year ahead of an issue with the water park, and then we have to do the audit.

We should be doing audits every year, or we should do every other year, but if it's in our contract, we should be doing the audits.

And so I'd like the same audit we're doing for the water park to follow the convention center.

If I might if I might add, I I did look up in the agreement with the with the uh convention center operator.

There is a section regarding audit where the manager agrees to provide to the client within 120 days following the end of each operating year a certified audit report on the accounts and records as kept by the manager for the facility.

Have we done that?

I believe they have provided us with uh financial records, but that's something I'd have to confirm.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I think this is a I think this is a good thing.

I think we need to do it on on those entities that we do give dollars to.

I think in all of our contracts it says that, right?

But I think we would we we need to make sure we don't overburden our internal audit.

Are you thinking internal audit?

Nope.

I'm thinking external external audit.

We should just put it there, do it, and then after that we can the audit team decide if they want to say we're gonna go to a uh every third year for X or every year for Y, and then maybe some are just done or I mean some maybe some are not done every year, maybe I'm not sure.

I guess my thought process was we we we pick one, we do it this year, and next we are.

I think the water park and the convention center should be done this year without thinking twice about it.

Um I'm cool with that.

And then the discussion should be with the board, is it will we do other ones?

So so you you talked about the convention center, we talked about animal shelter and um we talked about some citizen services, like who else would fall into that?

There there aren't very many of those, and that's the ones that I have just r um recounted are are the ones that are applicable at this point.

Okay.

Yes.

So it would be those four.

That we approved specifically.

Four.

And then it would be your outside services that we put.

So can like for the Fort Smith Museum of history, we give them what is it, fifteen thousand dollars, something like that.

Um what?

Twenty.

Twenty.

So is that does that really give us the ability to audit them in in the fact that we're only funding a portion of the other.

Well, yeah, I mean that's a great point.

I I wouldn't think so.

Other than if you could, you know, ascertain or have it be uh certified that yes, this is what the you know right how they utilize.

I agree with that.

I think the two main the main difference between I'll use the the water park and the convention center, those are city-owned assets that we are contracting with someone else to operate for us.

So I think that's a that's a specific kind of relationship.

I think these other other ones are entities that exist for purposes other than serving the city, and we then contract with them for you know for a limited service to the public.

And I think that is a different animal.

Yeah, that those that we're primarily funding, I think yeah, we've got to we've got to make sure that those things are thank you.

Any other comments on that?

So, Jeff, what would you need from us to s to start the same process on the convention center?

To follow what we did with the water park.

Well, first I'm going to uh confirm what what financial records and audits that we do get from them because the the agreement does provide that we should get that every year.

So we'll see what we've got.

I I guess I'd like to like follow this if we follow the same type of audit we did for the park with them, and that includes the the food, the their management fee, all that stuff.

I think we should follow the same thing that we're m matching apples to apples as much as possible.

I mean, we give them $750,000 a year to run a convention center.

We've done it for how many years, and I'm gonna say nothing's wrong with what they're doing, but I think that if we're gonna have discussion on one area, we should have a discussion on the other.

It's our I think it's our fiduciary response.

That's exactly right.

Thank you, Jeff.

I mean, m I'll just answer your question.

I think that you can I mean we will find and then come back to us.

Investigate the the cost and the parameters and the same type of audit, the agreed upon procedures type of audit that we did before.

I mean, I I imagine the cost will be pretty much the same.

Also probably is attributable to operating cost of the center.

So thank you.

Anything else on that item?

Go to the next item.

The next item tonight is a review of water conservation measures as codified in the Fort Smith Municipal Code.

This discussion was requested by the board after the incident last summer where water conservation measures were implemented, but the city's ability to ensure compliance and enforcement of the measures came into question.

To further address this matter and kick off the board's discussion is Lance McAvoy, Director of Water Resources.

Okay.

Um basically there is a presentation that I included in the slide or in the uh packet.

A lot of that is just information on what the water conservation uh measures are and what it does.

Uh in my talks with administration, I think the focus of what was requested was enforcement.

Um and I know Director Martin, you're the one that asked for this, so I'm I'm gonna kind of look to you on that.

I think my my my biggest concern, the thing that I heard the most was, you know, citizens were were asking me about their conservation, and specifically they they looked at the car washes and they said, why am I, you know, some of the some of these people are spending money on on yards and shrubbery and and organic gardens, those kinds of things.

And they're they're doing what they what they can do.

And it's specifically car washers are specifically mentioned, and it doesn't there's not any mechanism for conservation for uh car washes.

There are mechanisms for auto dealers that are washing cars.

They can only do it on a couple days a week, but the the car washes were just blown and going.

Now I don't know if there's some sort of system that they use where they're recycling water, things like that.

Um I'm just I'm not familiar with with how they do business, but it seems like a lot of our citizens were abiding by the rules, and that looked that looked I'm not gonna say egregious, but that was that was a heavy use of water by by the car washes.

And we had a lot of car washes that popped up over the last few years.

Yeah.

And I will tell you that yes, car washes do use a large amount of water, but the majority of what we saw during that conservation period that caused the issues really was not car wash driven, it was irrigation driven.

Um, you know, driving down Rogers Avenue and you go by a large entity at 8 o'clock in the morning, and not only are they watering during conservation, but they're watering the street and the sidewalk, which is expressly forbidden when there's not water conservation.

I mean, under the normal use, you're not supposed to do that.

And they did it every single day that we were under water conservation.

Here's uh this is actually out of the um presentation, and what I want to point out is the loose tank, the jack freeze, and wildcat mountain.

And uh knowing about where you live, Wildcat Mountain uh is you know very important to both of us because we live in that same area of town.

And you know, what we saw here, this is where the leak actually began, the the blowout, if you will.

And it stayed low because we weren't filling the tank.

We isolated um loose tank, that's the one behind uh Target.

But you can see Jack Freeze, it dropped and dropped and dropped, and we were still pumping.

And when you looked at some individual days, you can see where Howard Hill, Fienna Hills, you know, you would have this peak and valley, and and what was happening is, and and we actually, if we looked at it on a daytime, uh one day, a 24-hour period, you would see it gaining for a bit, and then about nine o'clock it'd start to lose, and you hit about midnight, one o'clock, and it would drop out till about 4 a.m.

because sprinklers were turning on.

And then after 4 a.m., the one thing that you never really normally see is a recharge of a reservoir or a tank during daylight hours, during early morning hours.

We were actually making up what we were losing during the nighttime in irrigation during the day.

So to that end, it there were we were receiving calls right and left.

My neighbor is watering and we're underwater conservation.

Isn't there something you can do?

Would you tell your neighbor that we're pleased underwater conservation?

You know, would you would you tell them that?

Oh, I yelled it at them.

And you know, there were posts on Facebook.

I pay for the water, I'll use the water.

And I understand where where the frustration comes from.

Car washes being uh industry, you know, do we then limit what we can use at hospitals?

Do we then limit what um other manufacturers can use that are heavy water users?

There is some guidelines on how much water is used during a time period on a car wash, because they're making they they have to pay a water bill too.

So the less water that they can utilize for what they're charging, the the more profitable their organization is.

If this board wishes to include a car wash provision in the ordinance, that is up to this board.

And and what that looks like, uh administration and myself would need some direction to to do that.

The biggest thing that that I think I saw through that is actual enforcement.

So say we did include car washes.

How do we enforce water conservation?

What do we, what are we doing to stop those people from watering on, you know, if we're in phase one and you're supposed to do odd houses on odd days and even houses on even days, and somebody is watering every day?

What is our mechanism to enforce that?

That's where since I've been to the city in 1996, to my knowledge, there has never been an enforcement action on water conservation.

We have had it.

We've got it on the books.

There's a there's a there's charges associated with it.

Well it's page 68.

I if I want to jump in here because you answered my question.

I was going to ask, and it goes to kind of what I talked about last week about, you know, do you have just political pieces of paper in the law, or do you actually enforce the things?

I mean, I was going to ask you, has there ever or even just last year, but you answered it even further.

Was anybody uh prosecuted, penalized for a first, second, or third violation?

And what you said a moment ago was that in your entire time with the history of the city dating back to the 1990s, you're not aware of anybody ever paying a penalty for noncompliance under Section 25-142.

So, I mean, I don't know that we're going to solve it tonight, but uh I think we would certainly probably like to hear some ideas around what could be done uh from an enforcement standpoint uh to to help uh modify the behavior that's against the law, because clearly Section 25142 is not doing it if your service dates back to the 1990s and you have it's essentially never happened.

Yeah.

And one of the problems that we run into, and I'll be truthful with you, um, I appreciate Director Martin bringing this up to to put on here.

I always read it when I when I had read through this multiple times before that it was a penalty, but it's actually not.

You're actually a citation has to be written.

It has to go to court, and you have to be convicted of violating water conservation.

So when that happens, who writes the citations?

Well, we've got three groups, to my knowledge, that can write citations.

The fire department with the fire marshals, the police department, and neighborhood services.

The only ones, in my knowledge, in the city that can write any type of citation.

All three of those groups have enough on their plate than to be water cops.

So what do we do about that?

And I'll be truthful with you, right now, I don't have a good answer.

It's something that I'm researching to find what other cities are doing, because it is something, you know, uh Director Settle and I'm just going to kind of say uh, you know, at one point in time he said, hey, during those hot times of year, maybe we go to phase one conservation for a month's period so that we don't have to so it extends the life of the water supply, and we're not having to worry about hitting our maximum daily demand.

And that would be great if we have a way to enforce it.

But it's just like how many times have we heard about people running red lights?

Well, as soon as police department starts writing tickets in certain areas, that stops.

As soon as people start getting penalized for violating water conservation, the violations will decrease.

You know, as you move forward and there is an opportunity, because to Director Settles is a very valid point, you know, this is supposed to be a tool, water conservation is supposed to be a tool to extend the capacity when it's under strain.

And so if the compliance is non, if it's not happening, uh it makes me wonder if, I'm sure data would show here are you can look at areas where oh, or even you could see where violations of this section of the ordinances are occurring, and it does make me wonder uh to your point, if there were some citations issued in areas that have heavy noncompliance, would that have uh the impact of, oh, they're actually they're actually doing something about this, perhaps um you know, perhaps I should be more diligent uh with my water conservation measures.

And I think that effect would happen whether or not ultimately the ticket was adjudicated in court successfully.

It could be did we see a decrease in water usage during that time?

I mean, did conservation actually take place?

No.

No.

Well, I take that back.

We did see a slight decrease, and it was really in areas that were not impacted by the break that we had, the northern area of town and part of the far western area of town, the reservoirs, we weren't having the issues with that.

Most of it was from the central area basically around uh loose and and Crow Hill, Wildcat, Fienna Hills, Chaffee Crossing Tank, those south of that area, that's where we saw, you know, and that's where we were already hurting.

So we were running pumps.

Uh we actually ran the system higher than we have ever run the system before.

What do you mean by that?

We were actually putting more water from Lake Fort Smith uh through the pipes that that we had.

We actually were pulling more than what we should have pulled from Lee Creek during that time frame to help make up for it.

And our pumps were running nonstop 24 hours a day.

Some of the pumps that normally cycle twice a day, we were having to run the whole time just to keep up with the demand.

You're running higher pressure.

Some of it was higher pressure at times.

Um I will tell you there have been a few things.

This is a little bit off water conservation.

We did learn some stuff.

Um Matt and Jimmy Johnson, who's here tonight actually did a crossover connection.

So should we have that type of break happen again in that same area, we won't we'll be able to remediate some of the challenges that we had, uh which is nice to know that we've got that.

But here again, that one we didn't know at that time.

We now know we've got it fixed, but what about the ones we don't know?

So water conservation, uh and here's the sad part.

We could produce, we we had the water in the reservoirs at Lake Fort Smith and Lee Creek.

It's the in town reservoirs that were draining so fast that we could not catch up because we had to take a seven and a half million gallon tank out of service.

I wonder if there's something we could do instead of penalizing if we could incentivize the positive uh uh positive uh conservation.

I I mean, what if we cut some you know 25 bucks off your bill if you if you lessen your usage or something like that?

You know, I that would be something that I'd like to maybe look at.

It's gonna cost money, but uh I I think that'd be that would be something interesting to look at.

Incentivize the positive rather than penalize the negative.

I'll I'll you know I'm trying to get with other uh municipalities, uh those in Northwest Arkansas and Central Arkansas.

This is the default, right?

This is this is the default, this is what has been in place, and I mean I think that's I don't remember when this exact language.

Now I will say that um during in 2004, 2005, and part of 2006 when Lake Fort Smith, the new dam was being built, um, we had to go into phase two, I believe, water conservation.

And the public understood that because we were actually pulling from the tail water side, we were in a massive drought, and most of the people were complying.

We still had people that that weren't, and and I witnessed that.

Um to that end, I again I I'll see what I can find for you.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's the default to penalize those that are abusive, but we could maybe look at it the other way.

Maybe that that provides us something to go off of.

So okay, very good.

Okay.

Do you have something else?

No, I'm just waiting to see if anybody else has other questions.

Mayor.

Uh so Lance, I'm going to kind of talk about this one and maybe start talking about the next one kind of.

And the reason why is I didn't see anything in here that um summer's hot, we've got you know, water is going.

What conservation measures do our outside group do?

How do we how do we enforce conserve of those conservative those ma uh conservation matters to the 42 percent of the water users outside the city?

So in and I'll I'll not.

Well, actually there's really good answers in that.

Um in several of our expired contracts that we currently have, um there was language, and it's in the new contract, that they have to have the same water conservation measures or more stringent than what we do.

And if we see that their water usage has not dropped during water conservation being enacted, we can hit them with a surcharge.

I I would go a different direction.

Okay.

I I think that if there's water conservation measures by the city, the first place that happens is uh we go and you know, and I I'm using uh uh a metering valve, but we go and we slow the metering valve to a certain percent so they can't go over a certain amount.

Um I I think that if we're gonna have our citizens go for water conservation matters, then we should say, hey, you we you've got a meter that is um I'll use an example, eight-inch meter, and now we're gonna throttle it down to six-inch.

And we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna force you to this instead of penalize them, we're just gonna say that's all the water you get.

And then that way those cities can say, okay, City Enforcement is underwater conservation, we're doing the same thing, and we've only got X amount gallons, and you know, when they run out.

I mean, I'm not trying to run people out of drinking water, but there's a point to where either you know penalizing, you know, but kind of what Neil says, I don't think anybody is gonna write tickets.

I think the better thing is start throttling things back.

Um use enforcing technology.

There's 11 outside uh cities or uh groups that use it.

I think we should have 11 meters that we can go and turn write it down and say, okay, it's it's closed by X percent, and you're gonna be throttled it by this, and that way they're already they're they're being they're gonna do that, and then we do something in in town at the same time.

Okay.

Yeah.

Flow restriction devices.

Yeah, enforced actual restriction was something that had crossed my mind too.

And so I would like to see number one, what the what the current I mean, if there is anything that currently allows us to do that, and what the cost would be to uh implement the technology to do that.

And the other thing is I didn't see in here that maybe instead of a fine, you just turn the meter off.

And that that was something that again, if if we change it, we can do it.

Yeah, I mean, as you said, the irrigation meter?

I'm talking about let's say let's say we're on heavy restriction and and somebody's violated three times in a row.

Neil Martin is watering his yard three times in a row.

Lance goes by there and does he see it three.

I'm using Neil's and land, then the water department should be able to say, look, you violate it, we're gonna turn it off, and now you're gonna have to pay a reconnection fee to start it back up.

That would be your fine.

Yeah.

I'm not trying to make it punitive, but I think there's a point where you gotta there were people that were blatantly just violating it no matter what and knew that were told they still did it.

And I've tried to get to where not to penalize the somebody forgot.

I'm trying to somebody says they were told they just blatantly forgot.

They just chose chose not to do it.

Yeah, and and I will tell you that uh um staff and I were discussing that during that time frame, and that was one of the things that they had actually brought.

Can we just not go through and turn people off?

And I said, well, you'd have to have a a proof that we show we talk to them you know X number of times but to your point.

Is that even an option?

That that becomes very costly on the city because you'd have to put a flow uh restrictor device on every meter.

Well, maybe you don't maybe it's the ones that are violating and just throw something on there.

I I I I've just I'm not trying to penalize people.

I just I'm looking at not the the currents that we had, and we're looking at a lot of people are using water, it's fifty-five million gallons a day, and we and we need the basics to fundamentally drink and survive, not to worry about people's green yards.

And that's all I'm trying to do.

But I I think we've got to do something on the outside because I I've asked this question in the past.

There's not really anything we do, they're supposed to, but I think we should be we should technology to kind of put those parameters in because the outside people uh groups I think they end up using more when we kind of conserve in the city.

And I and yeah, it sounds good, but they're not paying a higher premium.

So I think we should do something there.

Thank you, Mayor.

Is it is this process maybe just as simple as if people do not reflect the usage you're talking about outside people in that regard, then the water usage rate goes up per CCF for these outside users that did not take any conservation measures so that we can recoup costs for extended pumps that have had to overrun?

Yeah, that that's where the surcharge comes in to that.

Yeah.

I think also communication.

I think as simple as even as it I know there's an expense, but if there's a zone of the city that, you know, we have a mail system now that's intelligent enough to identify and send someone a postcard and say, you know, your water tower, you know, for the next two weeks is under massive construction, or we have an issue that we're being addressed.

You know, uh did people know.

You know, and I know they were gonna say, well, we did, we did all we could, but that's where, you know, Josh B.

Fink should be on the five o'clock news, it should be at the 10 o'clock news, you should have got a postcard in there, you know, spend some time communicating, communicate, communicate.

And then you might I I think people are more apt to do it.

I don't like the idea of restricting water.

I think that's a liability that I don't really feel comfortable touching.

Um but I do think communication probably was not as high as we think it was.

And I think if we could have done targeted communication, um, and golly, just get on there and show a graph.

You know, hey, Fianna Hills, you're not doing so hot.

Uh you know, maybe you need to stop watering your yards.

Just a little call out, you know, a big thank you to the east side of town.

This could make, you know, Neils give me five.

I mean, give him data.

I mean, let him go on there and we need to be overcommunicating.

Kind of like Cook Elementary doing a, you know, the best grade gets a pizza party, right?

So, hey, this side of town, you're not carrying the weight.

And apparently you haven't seen this, and you listen, this is gonna cause concerns, and we we've got to work together.

I mean, ultimately, it is our prerogative to not get into these measures.

And I think ultimately we need to be fixing generators and systems and waterline infrastructure and things of that nature.

But when we get to this sort of situation and we know there's a high cost, I'd say let's ramp up the communications uh, even if it comes at an expense, so that it's not that the citizens are to blame.

It's hey, we communicated with you.

We to me I think of the axiom, the shepherd never blames the sheep.

And so did we lead people to conserve better?

And I think that's the evaluation I take from what we've just went through.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay.

If there's nothing else.

I did wait.

I guess we kind of blended item seven.

If there's nothing more well, it's are we on item seven now?

Yeah.

I'm not I I didn't really I wasn't really addressing that to my comments.

I would not get it.

I do have a comment on seven as well, yes.

We will, if there are no more comments on uh five, six.

What about to say six, not seven?

Six.

Six, right.

Six is what we're talking about.

Let's go to item six.

Sure, so item six tonight is an introduction and discussion of a standardized draft, non-retail wholesale surplus user water agreement.

The city has a number of wholesale customers on its water system.

Three of the hosthold customers have special conditions, but as many as ten others have or have had different versions of a contract for water with Fort Smith.

Staff and the city attorney have worked up a standardized form of a contract to use for these customers, and that draft is presented to you this evening.

Tonight we are discussing the form of this agreement only, the applicable wholesale rate is determined separately by ordinance.

With the board's concurrence as to the form of the standardized agreement, staff can start the process to get those customers with ext expired contracts back under contract.

Mr.

McAvoy will further address.

Mr.

Dingman did a great introduction for me, and I will sit for questions.

Okay.

Director Kim.

Thank you, Mayor.

I you know, I come back to reiterate, you know, I know that there's a shared seminar of well full-time servants, all this and that.

To find that there are seven agreements that are expired is disheartening.

Uh, you know, we have paid professionals.

Someone should have caught this, especially since 1959 for the city of Mountainburg or 1989.

I mean, I was born in 83.

You're looking at a guy that is sitting here, I just that boggles me.

I understand it.

I understand I don't want to lament it too hard here, but I'm not happy.

I'm not happy to see a report.

It it it causes uh opening of Pandora of other questions that make me want to search into this of and I don't like it.

Um I I just want to make that known.

I'm not normally a negative guy, but seven agreements, unacceptable.

Um and I don't know who to ask more questions of.

I don't understand how we got here, but I totally support the standardization of this.

Thank you to staff and administration for bringing this forward because this is not good.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

So this is this is a uh this is a surplus user water agreement.

When does surplus water come into play here?

Because there are a lot of there are a lot of days that we don't uh spend we don't use 50 million gallons a day, which is our max capacity from uh from our two water sources.

But there are days that we're starting to get close.

We've had you know we we had a we had some information where we're getting close to maxing it out.

Like uh is this an average of our water, or can we can we nail it down to specific periods of time you we've got to have some cooperation with us.

We we being the primary we've we uh spent the money to build the the treatment capacity to build the the land the the water um uh reservoirs, all those things.

Do we have uh or should we put something in there that protects the citizens of Fort Smith first in these high water days?

So there are protections in there.

We we are first and foremost the users uh we have in in this language that we can restrict their usage, and when we're seeing those high usage days, note that that's everyone.

That's the surplus water users and and the city citizens of Fort Smith.

To me, there's no surplus water user in a day where we're 40 plus millions of gallons.

Right.

So I'm gonna go a little in the weeds, and I hope that's okay with you, but I want to kind of explain that and I actually took some direction from some stuff that uh Director Settle said, some stuff that other board members have said.

One of the studies that I did, and there are three systems that are are in that list that I I don't have the data from.

Four, pardon me, four.

Um, I ask for their sales.

What are they selling to their customers volume-wise?

Because we know what they're buying from us.

And I started looking at their unaccounted for water.

There are a couple of systems that have very, very high unaccounted for water.

One of them actually knew that they were at 70 percent.

Okay.

So their customers are paying for the water they're using plus 70 percent over that.

And that's not that water is not making it down to Fort Smith.

It well, no, it's actually going through Fort Smith.

It's one of the Southern users.

Okay.

But we have it's not making it to my house or your house or anybody else.

It's going to this other entity, and it's not making it into their people's houses either.

So looking at that, you know, Director Settle had mentioned, hey, we need to kind of look at how much water they're using in this agreement, looking at their unaccounted for water, over a five-year period, the plan is to do two things.

Number one, reduce the amount of water for those that have very high unaccounted for water year over year, so that it forces them to maintain their system because in the old contracts, all the old contracts said you will maintain your system.

Well, they haven't.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have 50 percent unaccounted for water or higher.

If they don't do that, and this is this is also kind of from where the board said we need to, you know, if they pay, if they use more, they need to pay more.

We have a tiered surcharge on it.

So if they are over a certain percentage of what we're going to put in their contract, either on a monthly basis or daily basis, if we can measure by days, um, they'll actually pay a surcharge for that.

Okay.

And that will then provide more revenue for us to go in towards the system to hopefully fund projects we need.

So by reducing their unaccounted for water, forcing them to maintain their system, that then reduces the demand on the plants and reservoirs and again extends the life, and we don't see those max days as quickly as we're seeing them because what you saw, I believe it was two weeks ago, was based on total system usage, contract water users, and Fort Smith, and that's where we were seeing those peak days of 48 to 50 so quickly.

What, two weeks ago?

Wasn't that two weeks?

Yeah, study session.

Oh, oh, oh.

Yeah, you weren't two weeks ago we didn't use 48.

No, no, no.

Uh the study said the the I I apologize.

Oh my gosh, we're in uh I was about to say we're gonna be in trouble in summertime.

No.

Now I will tell you that we did see a spike in water usage about uh three weeks ago, four weeks ago when we had the cold water.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, weather.

I get it.

So we have to take into account there.

So to answer your question, yes, we have the the methodology in here to restrict it.

Putting in flow restriction devices is something that was in the old contract that we can add to this contract.

Uh we had just taken that out because we had the surcharges, but that is not a problem to have that back in.

The the the impetus for uh um water rate increases a couple years ago in my mind was number one, we were we were getting questions of not having water in certain parts of the city.

That was number one.

Second was the the bond covenants and things like that, um, or the debt service coverage ratio.

Um but if and we're we're we're talking about a water transmission line that's potentially half a billion dollars uh along with treatment associated.

Um we've got to do everything we can to lengthen that time in which we are uh at risk.

Um not lengthen the time we're at risk, but shorten the time we're the the risk that we've got so that so that we are not facing days in the summer where we're hitting 40 plus million gallons of water per day.

Lengthen the time in which our infrastructure can support the needs of the city of Fort Smith.

Yes.

Yes.

I fully agree with you.

So we need to get these things going in 26.

I mean, are we are we are we in agreement in that?

That's why we're here.

That's why we're bringing this up.

All right correct.

So uh thanks, Lance.

I guess uh I got two questions here.

One is this is a tenure agreement, correct?

Yes.

Is is this doesn't affect the rate side.

So this would just be uh uh just a water agreement.

So is there anything that is is ten years too long?

Should it be like a rolling rolling five?

I mean I I I know the provisions in here with five years and there's some things you talked about, but is ten too long for future boards to look at?

Ten is what is kind of uh an industry standard and what I've seen around the state.

You can see up here that we had some as long as twenty to thirty.

That is ridiculously long.

Uh because we have so many uh uh coming up to do, I I would recommend 10 to your question on rates.

This board, there's language in the agreement as well.

If the board amends the rate ordinance, we give them 30 days of what their new rate is, and then that goes into effect.

So it doesn't tie it to the rate, it's just ties the provisions of what they have to do.

I I see in here the uh AWA, the American water standards are is you is in this document.

My question is let's go back to what Neil talked about.

Let's say we're gonna A WA standards.

My question is let's say we're gonna upgrade the water treatment plant at Mountainburg.

And it cost a fictitious number, please.

Let's say it's fifty million dollars.

Okay.

And we know that everybody outside the city of Fort Smith is 42 percent.

I'll just call 50 to is there provisions in here that says, hey, we got a capital, there's there's certain capitals that are going to be shared by everybody.

We can we're gonna raise 25 million by the city and 25 million by the outside services.

It is because if it's not, I I I agree that has to be agreed in here.

We've got to have certain capital that has to be shared.

Okay.

Because what I'm not gonna do is put the onus back on the city of Fort Smith.

Period.

They did it too many years and the rates were way too low back in the day, back in the 50s, 60s, 70s.

So I'll use the example.

If it's fifty million dollars, half of it is paid for in the side, half is paid for outside.

Is this Langerson's contract allows the city for the transmission lines, the treatment plants of both of them, those shared services by all of us.

And I get, you know, Mountainburg is closer than Fort Smith and Winslow is just around the corner, but it's still a shared service.

It should still pay their fair share for everyone.

So I think if there's not language in the contract, I'd ask for that to be put in there somehow.

So that way they know that if it's for certain capital, and and and it's a 10-year, so if something massively changes, we get a third water supply or something changes like that, we could redo it.

But I I would ask that we we'd put something in there to make sure we the everybody pays their fair share.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Any other comments?

Seeing none.

Uh well, not as it relates to item six, but I did have two quick requests for Jeff and Matt.

Uh and I'd like to hear something back one way or the other within the next couple weeks.

Uh number one, I'd just like to look and see.

I've been hearing a lot of feedback along B Street, uh heading to the west, uh, like towards downtown between Northside and 12th Street, there's a number of crosswalks.

Um have heard tell and seen myself some near misses in the crosswalks.

And so I was wondering if we could price out and see uh about getting the blinking um signs that go with those crosswalks uh on the grand percent.

10 grand per set.

Okay.

Uh is that I don't mean I guess I uh what was the cost of like the like blinking stop signs?

Like I'm not talking about the the auto I'm not even talking I'm not talking about hey you have to push a button or anything like that.

I'm literally talking about the flashers.

Uh the flash and stop signs, like we put a uh No, no, no, excuse me, I'm sorry.

Not putting in stop signs.

What I'm saying is I believe right now there's the crosswalks and they have the the diamond-shaped yellow.

Yes.

I would just like to see solar paneled flashing illuminating ones that indicate to the driver, hey, there's a crosswalk here, not a system like we have on Grand Avenue where you push a button and all that kind of stuff, or even ones that I've seen elsewhere where that are instigated by um detection of something passing, literally just like the flashing stop signs that we have in some places in town that just increase visibility.

I would just like to uh look into the possibility of those and you know if you guys could just report back what some options are there.

And then I heard tell from some constituents the Italian flag at Sisterna Park is tattered in a state of disrepair.

So if we could get a um new flag up the flagpole.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Director Kent.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um in the same spirit, I'd like to make a motion, and uh we'll need a second, uh, to put a an agreement on the consent agenda for the city to contract services with Colin Benzinger for the purposes of a national recruitment for the position of a city administrator.

Second.

On the next meeting, correct.

Okay.

Thank you, Director Martin.

Any other comments?

Director good.

It just to follow up, I believe uh last week Director Rigo had brought up uh uh possible study sessions sometime soon, upcoming about um street uh outway street lighting.

I was just wondering when that's gonna come up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think it was requested for that.

Yeah, I think there's another way.

There was alleyway street lighting.

Okay and the sixth street six of Wheeler.

Yeah.

We only have one study session in March.

Thank you for is there any spirit of that since that's a study session where we have citizens forum that we would be in the main room versus being in here?

See if we can make that happen.

I would agree with that one.

Put it in the main room.

Okay.

Uh you looked at the preliminary agenda, I'm sure.

Okay, good.

We've added to it, sir.

Motion to adjourn.

Thank you.