On this March 10th of 2025.

The meeting will be called order.

We will go directly to the first item on the agenda.

Thank you, Mayor.

The first item tonight is an update regarding an engineering roadway project.

You can reconfigure the intersection and street alignment at South Sixth Street and Wheeler Avenue in the vicinity of the bakery district.

The project will also address about 300 feet of 10-inch waterline along South 6th Street.

This project has been on the streets and drainage CIP since 2024, and the design has been contracted to Crafton Toll, who is here this evening.

Mr.

Todd Mitge, Director of Engineering will make his opening remarks as we proceed with this discussion.

Thank you, Mr.

Dingman.

As you stated, we have Kraft and Toll here to give a presentation and entertain any questions the board may have for them and myself included.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much and good evening.

Thank you for dedicating your time to this uh vital safety project.

Sixth Street is a crucial corridor bordering the bakery district, serving as a primary gateway to the National Cemetery.

This evening we'll provide a status update on project on a project that is already board approved and fully integrated into the 2024 Capital Improvement Program.

The mill has become a premier community hub, drawing significant foot traffic that our current infrastructure wasn't designed to handle.

The approach to the National Cemetery should be a dignified, welcoming, and above all, safe experience for all visitors.

The reality is that current conditions present ongoing risks for both pedestrians and motorists.

The project is our proactive step towards resolving those immediate safety gaps while honoring our long-term vision for the district.

Our goal is to harmonize competing needs within the high demand corridor.

Parking.

We are boosting capacity through intelligent layout optimization rather than relying on angled parking.

Safety.

Accessibility.

Ensuring full ADA compliance isn't just a legal checkbox.

It's a reflection of our community's commitment to inclusivity.

Future proofing.

And since this has been on the 2024 CIP, it's gotten worse.

People have to pull out into the intersection to be able to turn.

And the pedestrian crossings are very long and unprotected.

This plan is the result of multiple rigorous review cycles, careful balancing parking safety, and business access.

Key upgrades include expanding sidewalks to a comfortable seven-foot and ensuring full ADA compliance.

We're also simplifying the traffic signal at Wheeler to make crossing safer and adding greenery to beautify the historic entrance.

The seven-foot sidewalk provides a pedestrian spacious, sorry, a modern spacious pedestrian experience that sets a new standard for the area.

Traffic calming is being achieved through intuit intuitive geometry, avoiding the need for disruptive speed bumps and additional signals.

Importantly, business access remains completely uninterrupted.

Not a single driveway we believe will be eliminated.

And we have managed to increase parking through smarter design while leaving the door open for future angled parking configurations.

This project has already been approved through a 2024 CIP, and we are currently estimating the cost of approximately 1.53 million, although the final figure is uh still being worked on as we progress.

This instrument sorry, this investment is about more than just paving, it's a direct commitment to our community safety and long-term economic vitality.

Can I answer any questions?

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Director Rigo, you recognize.

How long?

I thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for the work uh that you've all put in on this.

Uh if we were to say start right away, and that's not what I'm saying, but how long uh do you envision this sort of um change taking place, the work?

Uh construction we've estimated to be about seven months.

About 290 working days.

Okay.

Thank you.

I just I know uh I'll say uh for myself, as someone who's at the intersection and uses this frequently, I mean it's definitely definitely a intersection that we need to seriously consider uh how it can be upgraded, how it can be future-proofed, how it can be modernized, not only for the heavy traffic um that goes in and around the bakery district, but I mean that's the front entrance, if you will, right into the national cemetery.

And so uh I know that it's been on our mind ever since the resolution we passed back in 2024, uh, but just want to make sure we don't lose momentum on uh making sure that this is addressed moving forward.

Okay, thank you, Director Rigo.

Any other comments?

Director more.

I have one comment.

I don't know if this is for you guys, but is the is the water alignment replacement specifically due to this project, or is that just was that already on our our uh on our plan?

I think that's a it is being combined with this project because of this uh I mean it needs to be done.

Okay, and it it's it's necessary to be done, but it's it's convenient time.

Okay, okay.

That's what I needed to know.

Thank you.

Director Christina Kasavage.

Well, we'll say um I don't know if you remember we all got pictures of um some water leaks that were over there.

Do you remember that?

It was a year or so ago.

There was a lot of water that was leaking in that area.

Oh, uh that area, uh yeah.

Yeah, but yeah, I think you're out.

Yeah.

Director Camp.

Thank you, Mayor.

To the point of Director Martin, I I do wonder since this project, which I think is a great project and needs to be done as I frequent this intersection as well.

Should we, and and this is just a question for staff, I guess, really, should we look at replacing more than 300 feet to avoid digging up freshly paved roads down the road?

Um so often I think the thing that I cringe on is a road gets repaved, and then yet here we are sawing a section out of the freshly paved road, or are there other utilities that need to be addressed as well along the way so that we do this right and look at what's underneath?

And then a follow-up of that would be I remember I think it was uh Jimmy, Mr.

Jimmy that was talking about downtown having high pressure, and we talked about dialing pressure down, and if we were to do that, is any of that swell itself into this project scope?

That's a question I have.

Thank you.

That's a great question.

In this case, there's a approximately 120-year-old sandcast water line in here that is the same type of line that comes down Garrison and Rogers as well.

So when or if as you recall, there was a issue with those several years ago where there's some steel plates in the road for a very long period of time.

That's because there was problems with the sandcast line, and once it's touched and disturbed, it is very tough to control and it just keeps on breaking.

It's almost like an asbestos concrete line.

So with this project, we're afraid that when they start ripping things up that the sandcast line will be disturbed and will have problems.

So that's why the bare minimum is 300 feet of the sandcast water line.

But I believe there is sewer there as well, but it's it's already been taken care of in another project.

But we'll look into that further.

And as far as extending the project, if the board wants to do that and and modify the CIP, we could go farther to the northeast and keep on going.

But at this time we would end with the what you see as a green bulb out at Parker Avenue.

That that's kind of a traffic calming measure to allow folks to safely pull out from Parker to uh see if it's safe to come out because we thought we thought about putting a stop sign there, but M U T C D manual on uniform traffic control devices does not support, in my opinion, a stop sign in that location.

So this is a great way to do that and allow uh greater safety there.

But it could be extended, and my long-term plan would be to improve a bulbout past Parker by the courthouse and you know keep beautifying this strip of roadway and really highlighting this this section of the city.

But it's all anything can be done with enough money.

Thank you for your keen on silence.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Director Neil Martin.

I do have one other question.

Um a number of people have reached out to me about the confusion as they're coming on Wheeler and making the decision to turn uh ride on uh on sixth or keep going straight.

I think the the light plays a role in that confusion.

Um what and I know you kind of talked about it, but how's that being addressed with this particular project?

With this project, um, we're actually gonna change the intersection altogether.

Okay.

There is a dedicated lane to the right that is uh just for the right.

That'll just be okay.

Is it is it is it a right turn today?

Is it right turn only?

It is, but the where the masts are and the lights are, it is confusing.

It is the way the light, yeah, the the light throws people off.

Okay, keep going, I'm sorry.

Um yeah, so that but we are changing um coming from sixth onto Wheeler.

Okay.

We're changing the lane dynamics there as well.

Okay.

So um right now you have uh coming from Wheeler, well, we've had it temporarily changed recently.

So we've been trying out some ideas to see what would be most productive.

But it used to be that you had a free left kind of um onto Wheeler, and now it's it's a stop intersection regardless of which direction you're going.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, that's been people who brought that up to me said this is one of the more confusing intersections in the city.

And so um anything that we can do to kind of clean that up.

I mean, you are you got folks that are going downtown, you got folks that are going to Oklahoma.

Um, and that that just there's a lot of confusion there.

And I I also will mention that lighting um is is pretty expensive.

That's our biggest costs are probably associated with the traffic light and with the panels.

We're replacing the panels in that intersection on the trolley line to clean those up and make those more safe too.

So those are two pretty big expenses, and that's that's uh a lot of where that cost comes from.

Okay.

Director Settle.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Michelle, for everything you did here.

Uh when you presented this to us before, we had angled parking back end, now we're going to parallel parking.

Why was the change made it was discussed and Fort Smith doesn't have any back end parking?

And this is not the right place to put the first example of it.

I think that um the city felt that it would be um more advantageous to put the first back end parking in in a very uh uh open area that was well uh cited.

So um right here that with the people coming around the corner and the and the building being there, it it just it could do we could do it and we have the site distance, but it's just not the best place for the first time in Fort Smith.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh Director Rigo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Jeff, are there uh next steps?

You know, can you talk us through kind of the next steps?

Is there any action uh that you would like us to take to have this uh you know progress made on this?

What what's where does this stand and what's next?

Well they they will finish the design work and then they will facilitate the construction bidding process, and so that'll be the next thing that you see.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any more questions?

Mayor, I did want to say we are having some uh video difficulties with the the meeting tonight, so just FY.

Okay, thank you very much for that.

Thank you for your time.

Okay, thank you, Michelle.

Should be good now in here.

Okay.

Thank you.

With that, we will go to item number two.

Some time ago, the board requested a discussion regarding employment and job growth in the city of Fort Smith in the River Valley.

Here with us to lead such a discussion this evening is Kendall Ross, Associate Vice Chancellor for Economic and Workforce Development at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith's Center for Economic Development.

Also here this evening are Sasha Grist and Ashley Garris from the City's Workforce Development Partner, the Western Arkansas Planning and Development District.

Mr.

Ross has a presentation for us this evening to start the discussion.

So Kendall.

Mr.

Dingman, thank you so much for the opportunity to do this.

Josh, can you pull up my uh presentation and then we'll get started.

Yeah.

Uh let's see here.

All right.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Um, and I want to do exactly what you ask.

I want to give you an update on the employment and job growth in Fort Smith.

Uh I'm going to walk you through the current labor market.

I'm going to look at some trends in some various sectors, and then I'm going to close uh with what uh the Western Arkansas Planning and Development District is doing as well as uh the University of Arkansas Fort Smith is doing to support uh workforce development in this area.

Uh so the session here is really important for three reasons.

First, uh it's to give this update on employment and job growth that you requested.

But secondly, I want to look at labor market conditions and I want to look at some very key sector trends that we see in the Fort Smith Metro.

I really want to focus on what's changing but also what's stable as well.

And then finally, I want to tie uh this data to action and what's Western Arkansas Planning and Development District and UAFS is doing uh to support the workforce development ever.

Uh here's the headlines.

Unemployment is 4.4 percent.

Uh total non-farm jobs 105,200.

So unemployment at 4.4 percent, anything between 2.5 and 4.5 we consider pretty good.

That is normal unemployment.

We're gonna have people that are in and out of the workforce on a regular basis, and so that's normal for us.

Um we are near the same as the United States, and we're slightly above Arkansas, and we'll look at this specific data as we go through this.

Uh the total non-farm jobs are 105,200.

That is a record number of jobs for the Fort Smith since uh Metro since uh right before the Great Recession of 2008.

So we have been on a steady climb.

Um I characterize that as slightly rising, um, and you'll see our total non-farm growth was 0.7 percent year over year.

Um I think the thing that we need to see here is what's driving it.

The gains are primarily in leisure and hospitality, um, and as well as trade, transportation and utilities and government is down, um, and we'll we'll look very specifically at these data.

Uh so in plain English, what does that say?

Well, uh before I get into the charts, uh, which I'm gonna show you a lot of data, but before we do that, I just want to kind of give you an overview of what I think this tells us.

Um Fort Smith is stable, and I think that's what we need to hear.

Uh, but it's growing more slowly than our peers.

Um, the drivers, uh, recent gains in service and transport sectors, not manufacturing.

Uh, construction is volatile, uh, suggesting some softening over the course of the last year.

Our population growth is weak, and because of that, that restricts our hiring capacity pretty significantly.

And so the implications for that are um basically that capacity matters.

Uh population and labor force trends shape how fast we can grow, and they influence our hiring pressure and our competitiveness.

And so, as a as a metro, we need to upskill and we need to add attract, and we need to build our growth sectors.

Uh so let's talk about the data for just one second.

Um, all of the charts you're gonna see are based on the Federal Reserve Bank of St.

Louis.

We use that because it's best for illustrative purposes.

The underlying sources are the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and then we use the Compass Report archives, which we produce quarterly to review Fort Smith, Northwest Arkansas, Central Arkansas, and Jonesboro trends in a very consistent way.

Employed persons are people who did any type of paid work for the reference week, and that would include people who are self-employed.

And then unemployed are people who do not have a job, but at the same time were available to work and actively looking for work in the last month.

The local area unemployment statistics provide us the number of people, so labor force and employed and unemployed, and then the current employment statistics provide us the jobs.

And so sometimes those don't match perfectly, and you'll see that as we move through the data.

Unemployment rate is the share of the labor force that's unemployed.

Unemployment rate is basically unemployed divided by the total labor force.

Labor force participation rate is the amount of people that are participating in our force, total non-farm jobs, the number of jobs that are located in the metro that are reported by employers.

This excludes farm work and generally excludes self-employed.

And then finally, the sector job change year over year.

What we're going to do is we're going to look at the change broken out by industry.

We'll look at manufacturing and health care, etc.

If it's positive, that means we've added jobs.

If it next if it's negative, that means the jobs have declined.

So let's start with the base unemployment rate for the Fort Smith Metro.

I'll just remind you that the Fort Smith Metro is Sebastian Crawford counties in Arkansas, Sequoia County in Oklahoma.

You can see it's pretty stable here.

You'll see the pandemic spike in 2020.

The key point here, I think, is stability.

There's not a sign of any kind of labor market slowdown.

There's not a turn down, but there's also not a lot of slack here.

This is the baseline health check, if you will, before we compare Arkansas and the U.S.

So this is where we are, somewhere between about four, four and a half percent.

The unemployment rate in Fort Smith versus Arkansas and U.S.

So the red is the United States, the green is uh Arkansas, and the blue is the Fort Smith Metro.

You'll notice for most cases we stay below the rate of Arkansas.

There are times that we peak above that, but for the most part, we stay there.

Most generally we stay below that of the United States.

This is the civilian labor force versus employed persons.

So what we're looking at here in the blue, this is the amount of people that are available to work in the Fort Smith Metro.

The green that you see is the amount of people that are actually employed.

You'll see a difference, probably about 4,000 or so.

That's about a normal unemployment rate for us.

There are just going to be people that are leaving jobs and transitioning jobs and things of that nature.

Um, so that's about right for us.

Um let's talk about resident population.

I went back to 2007, and what I did is I indexed 2007 as 100%.

So this is prior to the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

So everyone's population, whatever it might have been in 2007 is 100%.

And then what we did is we tracked the population growth.

This is showing growth for Fort Smith, which is in the blue, green is Arkansas, red is United States, and that yellow or orange or amber color, whatever you want to call it, is Northwest Arkansas.

So you can see here that we have had a significant growth in Northwest Arkansas, in fact, about plus 35% since 2007.

What constrains us is our population.

In Fort Smith, you're gonna see a weaker long-run population trend.

You'll see a couple of step changes.

That's just a change in the way data is reported.

But the big takeaway here is really the same, and that is population growth capacity here in the Fort Smith Metro has lagged our peers, and that really affects how fast employment can expand.

Let's talk about recovery of non-farm jobs.

One of the things I was concerned about was how quickly did we recover.

So again, I indexed this to February of 2020, right prior to the pandemic.

So our non-farm jobs, I call that 100% in February of 2020, and how quickly did we recover?

That's what this chart tells us.

So you can see the drop during COVID.

You can see the rebound within a couple of years we had rebounded really well.

And then you can see this slower upward slope afterward.

And the message here is that recovery occurred, and jobs are rising, but again, they're rising at a modest pace.

Under total non-farm jobs, this is just the actual total number of non-farm jobs.

This data is seasonal, seasonalized here, but but the data is right at 105,000 jobs in the Fort Smith Metro.

This is the baseline for what we're going to look at when we talk about adding or removing jobs.

This is the job count that anchors absolutely everything that we do.

This is 105,000 jobs in the Fort Smith Metro.

It also provides kind of scale for you for the sector slides.

So when we say a sector is up or a sector is down, we're talking about a contribution to this total of non-farm jobs.

So let's start with manufacturing.

Manufacturing is still an anchor for Fort Smith.

If you look at the far right-hand side of this slide, you'll see about 18,000 people employed in manufacturing jobs.

What you do see here is stability rather than rapid growth.

And that matters.

Manufacturing makes up a little over 17% of our total jobs, and that's pretty significant for this area.

There's no other metro in Arkansas that gets anywhere close to 17% for manufacturing jobs.

So this is a strength, especially when we think about competitiveness and wage potential.

Manufacturing jobs are significant for us.

Let's talk about construction jobs for a second.

Construction is very much cyclical, reacts very quickly to interest rates and development activity.

You can see the volatility here in construction jobs.

But I'll treat this kind of as an early signal sector.

When construction softens, it can hint at kind of a slower momentum for other parts of the economy.

I think you'll notice in 22 we began to rebuild.

I think the majority of that is probably apartments and car washes in Fort Smith is what I think it is.

This is private education and health services.

Most of this is health services.

So the private education part here is pretty small.

You'll notice that health services are really at a record number of employment since actually before 2007.

So this is a 20-year record.

I think you'll find that health services is a stability for an economy.

So this is one of those areas that we can continue to grow on.

Leisure and hospitality is kind of a good signal for consumer and service activity.

So you'll see the post-pandemic recovery happen pretty quickly.

You'll see more recent gains.

In fact, I'll connect this to the year-over-year changes.

This is one of the great sectors that we saw some increase in.

This sector is one of the drivers of recent job growth.

And so this tells us that our restaurants, our hotels, and our tourism activity is continuing to increase, and so that's a really good sign.

Well, here's the scoreboard.

This is uh answers the question where do the jobs actually change last year?

This is uh the Fort Smith, Arkansas, Oklahoma MSA from December 24 to December of 25.

You can see we lost 200 jobs in government, 100 jobs in other services, and then 100 jobs primarily in construction.

Information, financial activities, and manufacturing were all flat year over year.

And then the the sectors that gained were professional and business services gained 100 people, education and health services gained 200 jobs, uh, trade transportation and utilities is up 300 jobs, and then leisure and hospitality is up 500 jobs.

So you can kind of see which sectors are driving growth and which are offsetting.

This this matters because broad based growth feels a lot different than growth that's concentrated in one sector.

So it's good to see that we have four sectors that are growing.

Let's talk about average weekly earnings as reported.

Um again, the red is the United States, the green is Arkansas, and the blue is average weekly earnings of all employees in the Arkansas Oklahoma MSA.

I have indexed this back to February of 2020, so I am looking at what has happened post COVID.

Again, everything was indexed back to 100%, and you will see that Fort Smith Metro is keeping up with the United States, and it's also keeping up with Arkansas as far as average weekly earnings.

Now, what I do want you to see is at the far top right, um, and if you'll take 2026 and go up to the top, you'll see we have increased wages about 30 percent since COVID.

So just kind of keep that number in your head for a minute, if you would.

I'll get back to it in a second.

This is a total non-farm jobs recovery since 2020.

Again, everything's indexed to 2020.

The green is Arkansas, the blue is Fort Smith Metro, and the red is total non-farm the United States.

What you're gonna see is this is probably one of the most important comparisons for us to see.

Arkansas has outpaced the United States since COVID, and Fort Smith has grown, but it's at a slower rate.

And this doesn't mean Fort Smith is failing.

What it means is our pace is different, and that brings us back to sector mix and uh capacity constraints, what we see here in the metro.

So let me uh just put a chart up that kind of shows you a little bit about how we compare to the other three metros in the state.

The unemployment rate in Fort Smith is 4.4 percent.

This was as of December 2025.

Northwest Arkansas unemployment rate at 3.1%, Central at 3.9, and Jonesboro at 3.9.

Again, all of those are what we would consider uh reasonable unemployment rates.

But if you look at total non-farm job growth, you'll see we're up seven tenths of a percent year over year.

Northwest Arkansas is at 3.6 percent, central Arkansas is at one, and Jonesboro is at 1.4.

Probably the key here though is our manufacturing share.

17.2 percent of our employment is in manufacturing.

8.9% is in Northwest Arkansas, and Central Arkansas is at 5.4%.

I think the key takeaway is the growth gap, especially compared to Northwest Arkansas.

Um I think the manufacturing share also helps us kind of explain structural differences here.

Uh Fort Smith is very much manufacturing anchored, which influences how quickly we grow over time.

Okay, let's talk about the house price index.

Um again, these are indexed back to February of 2020.

So pre-COVID, what is happening to house prices across the region?

Well, red is United States, green is Arkansas, blue is Fort Smith Metro, and guess what?

We are continuing to increase.

Um are we staying competitive?

I don't know, perhaps, but if you'll look at that number on the far right, which is 2025, you can guesstimate where 2026 is.

House price index are up since February of 2020, 60 percent.

The average weekly earnings were up 30%.

So you can see our struggles here.

This matters because affordability affects workforce attraction and afford affects retention.

Even if our job growth is modest, these rising costs can tighten the labor pool and will create pressure on households.

So what does this outlook look look like for the next uh two quarters?

Um, we have some strengths.

Our service sector gains continue, leisure and hospitality is strong, uh, trade transportation and utilities is strong.

Manufacturing remains stable year over year, it's flat, but that's a good sign.

And the total jobs are continuing to rise, but they're rising slightly.

The things we're watching, I think we need to watch construction softness.

It's a little bit of a decline, and it's certainly very volatile, and there is a definite labor force constraint that limits our hiring capacity.

We simply don't have enough people.

What we'll continue to monitor through the compass reports, we'll uh continue to monitor non-farm year over year, whether it's broadening or narrowing, and then what's the labor force trend look like?

What's the availability?

I think the bottom line here is job growth is positive, but it's certainly concentrated in a few sectors, and there are some capacity constraints that we very much need to watch.

Uh what does this mean for Fort Smith?

This is probably the way I would sum it up.

Um Fort Smith's labor market is stable but very much capacity constrained.

Job growth is positive.

Again, we are at a record number of jobs for the Fort Smith area in the last 20 years, but it's narrow, it's very dependent on a few sectors.

Manufacturing remains a pillar of the economy, and that's important as we continue to look for more efficient processes.

And then the population and labor force trends require focused workforce development and talent retention strategies.

So here to speak about the Western Arkansas Planning and Development District and that the services they offer is Ashley Garris, um assistant director.

Thank you for having us.

Um we at Western Arkansas Planning receive the WIOA funds, which is the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title 1B funding from the state, which ultimately comes down from the Department of Labor.

Um the program is designed to support individuals in gaining skills necessary for employment, particularly those facing barriers to the workforce.

We are dedicated to removing the barriers that we have in order to get them back into an in-demand occupation to further their self-sustainability.

So we offer training, um, we do job search, resume writing, um, mock interviews, referrals with our partners.

So we have Wagner Pizer, Adult Ed, Arkansas Rehab are some of our core partners that we partner with here at the One Stop Center downtown.

And so you can go there and we will send you to all the partners and they will help you if we can't we have to be the last resort, which is just part of our requirements.

And so we usually see if adult A can help with the funding, maybe to send you back to training to get a certificate, whether it's welding, CDL, CNA.

So we offer those services for adults and youth.

So the youth is going to be um ages 16 to 24.

Um, they provide the same services that we do to the adults, um, but we also offer the work experience.

So we can find an employer that is needing someone, and we can actually pay their wages.

Um we can pay up to a thousand and twenty hours based on the need, and that is at minimum wage for the state minimum wage.

So we're just trying to get these young people backing so they can have the soft skills to get in the workforce.

Um we hear from a lot of our employers that the youth don't have the soft skills whenever they graduate.

So we are trying to help fill that gap as much as possible.

Um we also have the dislocated worker program, um, which is adults that are maybe being laid off, company closures in our area, so they can come to us if they want to learn a different trade, go back to school to do something maybe that's in a different field.

We can help pay for those individuals to go back to school to get a certificate.

When the Tyson layoff happened in Van Buren, we were able to help a lot of those individuals go back to college to get uh bachelor's degree, associate's degree, whatever they wanted to do, as long as it was something different and they didn't already have something.

Um there are eligibility requirements for all across the board, um, just like with any other federal program.

But we do try to meet the people where they're at and help them in any way to try to get them back in the workforce and fill the gaps for our employers in the area.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Ashley.

Um, one final slide.

Here's how the University of Arkansas Fort Smith Center for Economic Development supports this work.

Uh we provide economic intelligence, which includes labor market trends, uh sector changes, the compass benchmarks on a regular basis.

That way decisions are data-driven.

Um I think that's important.

We also deliver workforce and professional training aligned to employer needs.

Um this year we will introduce manufacturing academy this summer, uh, where we will take people who are unemployed and underemployed and provide them with a hundred hours of training in a new workforce development center on campus, and we will train them to go directly into a manufacturing job.

So our goal would be to take someone who's making minimum wage and move them into a manufacturing role where they can actually um have a decent wage and um at the same time have benefits, and so we're excited about that.

We also have youth apprenticeships that we offer every summer and adult apprenticeships through the Department of Labor.

Uh we support business growth and nonprofit capacity through our centers.

Our goal is to align partners and strengthen the talent line and keep uh providing clear reporting uh ultimately so that you as a city can track progress.

Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and uh happy to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh Director Settle and then Director Neil Martin.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, Dr.

Ross.

Appreciate it.

Um let's go back.

The MSA, what counties are the MSA?

So there are three counties, Sebastian, Crawford, and then Sequoia, Oklahoma.

So we're taking those so it's you see Fort Smith Metro, you're really talking more River Valley Metro, right?

So Fort Smith Metro is defined by the Office of Management and Budget.

So yeah, I would call it River Valley Metro.

Okay.

So everything we talked about was those three counties combined, right?

Correct.

So just was brought up with Ashley.

When Tyson hit in Van Buren hit a layoff, we that metro hits us.

Is it correct?

Absolutely.

Okay, so it's just not Fort Smith only, it's the counties as a whole.

Absolutely.

Is there any way to pull just Fort Smith out of the data?

Um you don't have an answer now, but I would ask that question because this board gets measured on Fort Smith alone, and now we're trying to measure us on a three-county basis that we have no control of the other areas.

So that's the reason I was asking the question.

I think the answer is no, but I will go back and research that for sure.

Okay, and then the Northwest Arkansas Metro, is that just the two counties, Washington and Biton, or is it count anything else?

It's Washington and Benton.

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, so I think this kind of mirrors what we've what we've seen.

There is growth, but it's semi-flat.

Um there is job growth, but it's flat as well.

Um it seems like we've been on that trajectory for for a while now.

What when when you look at uh when you look at successful communities and and you know, we see I think we saw one of the slides that Jonesboro had doubled us in terms of that we were 0.7, they were 1.5, something like that.

I think that's the non-farm payrolls.

Um I'm not saying that they're successful.

I'm just saying what are successful cities doing because I we've got to recruit.

We've got to bring people here, we've got to bring jobs here.

Um what are successful cities, and not necessarily just the government entity itself, because I'm not a big believer in government driving all of this, but what are successful cities doing in order to get that population growth, get those job growth?

Um, and and how can we as a as a as a governing body help foster that?

Yeah, I'm gonna leave those questions to you guys on the city board because that's your job.

My job is to report the data and let you figure out how to get people here, and you get them here, we'll train them.

Well, you know, I I government I don't think government drives all the strings.

I understand.

Or it pulls all the strings, but I think that government can create a uh a climate that is good.

In 2019 2020 we were we saw those construction numbers the building permit numbers right went through the roof.

I mean they're up to up through maybe 23 24 they just dropped in 25 they're starting to come back up but not I mean we're at half a billion dollars in the metro in terms of building permits we're now at about 280 um and that was that was the difference between 22 23 and now 25.

So it just dropped off a cliff and now it's making its way back up.

There's probably some things related to COVID and how COVID dollars are being allocated and all those things that that led to that but um you know I I think I think for a board this this ought to be our driver and you know I know that we talk about stability and we talk about um you know that we we don't maybe don't necessarily see the ups and the downs like other municipalities do but I think we've we've really got to set our focus on population growth and and job growth in order to be able to continue our growth.

Now I and and the one thing and and director Kat Savas uh Christina Katzavis brought this up when we were talking about water we're having to make significant decisions related to water based off population growth and we know we've got the the the FMS mission that's making its way here and we haven't seen the full impact of that yet that'll happen over over a few years but you know if if if we if we don't trend at 1.5 percent growth which is I think what the projections were made at then we've got a longer window in which we we have to be able to build this water transmission line that's gonna anywhere from 300 to 500 million dollars um but you know I I I still think we've got to push for uh growth and in in population growth and jobs because I I think my belief and I'm not an economist is as more jobs come here that becomes uh more jobs for uh uh for all of us which should drive up wage growth is that how that works yes okay so see wage growth so we we see all that stuff happening together it's just we've got to figure out a way to make it make it work agreed direct sands well I think it does look like we are seeing uh wage growth if wages have increased 30 percent since 2020 um you know I would say to attract those larger employers here we have to have a qualified skilled workforce and so that's one thing that I've been really looking into is um what is available to us and I know there's some programs um through the state that are funded through the state um that they're not just the CDL and things like that but um one of the programs they offered was for someone to get their uh project management certification I know that's usually you know a few thousand dollars um that was available free of charge and so the the director of workforce connections for Arkansas he's actually a Fort Smith guy and so I I talked to him from time to time and he said you know Fort Smith just doesn't take advantage of these programs like Northwest Arkansas does like Conway does so that's something I think we need to be mindful about and really looking into going forward I just held uh a round table for small businesses and I was asking them how are wage expectations changing and they said over the past few years things have changed very rapidly not only are wage expectations increasing but people are less skilled and and less fewer soft skills and so I think we really need to lean into how do we get our workforce up to speed and qualified Kendall do you feel like our numbers on the um the unemployment you know I hear sometimes that these numbers are artificially low because people just drop out of the workforce do we see any of that?

Well you'll see some of that but if they're dropping out of the workforce they're dropping out of the workforce in a lot of places as well they're dropping out of the workforce in northwest Arkansas too and so this only accounts for those people that are looking for jobs that's when when we look at unemployment that's what we're looking for is it over a certain period of time does it measure just for six months and then after that so they report weekly the unemployment reports weekly and that is how many people are um searching for jobs this last four weeks thank you director Neil Martin could we get this slide deck of course thank you I appreciate it you bet Director Kemp thank you mayor um Dr.

Ross thank you for your hang on just one second mr not doctor I mean I'll take it I'll take it if you thought director settle said doctor so I went there it was director settled so it's all right it's all right okay I I looked for him as a senior leader of the city answered a physician to doctor so he's only been around a couple decades I don't know what his thing is uh Mr.

Dr.

Yeah, he's only been around a couple of decades.

I don't know what his thing is.

Mr.

Ross, thank you for the great presentation tonight and the data.

One question about related to Director Settle's uh question or question, I wonder is it easier to track out of the 105,000 jobs for the Metro?

How many of those jobs are in Fort Smith?

Would that be a way to start deducting into how much of the percentage of the pie we have?

I I don't know the answer to that, but I will find out.

And I'm just curious on that because I would love to see if there is a way there to see the data of that.

And I really like the the talent retreat uh retention strategies that the university and and uh the the lady represented here today.

Is there any metric that or maybe something you think we could find out from the school district about how many of those graduates from high school are going to college, how many of them are joining the workforce, and how many of them are joining our workforce versus leaving to go to one of the other metro areas or another part of the United States?

I'm wondering how many of our high school graduates that are just joining the marketplace.

Are we are we are we succeeding in keeping them, or are they going to these other metros?

Do you think that's a that's a very fair question?

Uh our director of uh Western Arkansas Technical Center and the director of early college program would could answer that.

That is something that we do on a regular basis is we're training high school students at the Western Arkansas Technical Center out of peak.

Um so our goal is to get those people trained, and they're either ready to go into the workforce or they're ready to go to college.

And so we would have those numbers for sure.

Another question I thought of is that maybe we could work on is what is the largest hiring barrier that employers are reporting?

You know, is it is it skilled labor?

Is it the housing?

Is it the child care, is it transportation?

I wonder if they would even help us rank those of which ones they're hearing the most.

Yeah.

It's going to be all of those, but but we can pull a list of exactly what that is for sure.

And then how many, Corrine?

This is my last question.

You may be able to answer this one because of the University of Arkansas connection.

Um graduates from college are staying in our area.

So I don't know the number exactly, but the majority of them are staying here.

That's the great thing about having the University of Arkansas Fort Smith right here in our community, is we are very much connected to the local community, and the majority of our students stay here.

That's our goal is to help them get a degree and then stay here in our community and really involve and get connected here.

One thing I'm hopeful of, and just I'll share my comment, I'll be done up.

I'm hopeful of in the future, because you know, you can look at your strengths and your weaknesses and things, but I think sometimes we when you have a strength, play your strength.

And when since we have such a strong position in manufacturing, I would love to see in the future, you know, defense manufacturing brought to Fort Smith, Arkansas.

I think it belongs here, uh, especially as we support and stand in support of the FMS project.

Uh we have, you know, not only just that base, having Airface Air Force Base, you have the base at Chaffee.

I mean, we have a we're a military town.

We're friendly, uh, especially as we talk about the international connections that we'll have.

I would love to see growth in defense manufacturing here.

I think we bring great paying jobs.

So the university just released a new advanced manufacturing engineering degree.

So this is our first four-year engineering degree here at the university.

We've had mechanical and electrical, which is a two plus two with the University of Arkansas.

But we did the we released the advanced manufacturing engineering degree at a request of our manufacturers.

This is what they wanted.

They told us specifically what they wanted, and this is the only one here in Arkansas.

And so I think you're going to see uh a lot of students participate in the advanced manufacturing engineering degree to do exactly what you're talking about, bring in some high skilled uh labor.

And I'd love to see a thousand affordable housing built, but I think at the same time we're gonna have to solve the water.

You know, we can't, you know, water pressure will be an address if we increase housing.

But uh, you know, we've seen a lot of houses built, but a lot of the houses that I've seen built on the south side of town are pretty high, high in their value.

And I think we're gonna have to continue to answer that as well.

Um I feel like it's some things that I'm noticing.

I really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Director Rego.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just wanted to say uh uh Mr.

Ross, thank you.

Thank you, the Sasha and the folks from Wappadity uh for the work that both your organizations do uh multifaceted across the workforce and development space and for the information you've shared with us and and share with everybody on a quarterly basis.

And I think you know, we all sense that there's work to do and that improvements uh can be made and should be made, and we should always uh be focused on improving.

But when you have these juncture points to check in, I think it's worth saying thank you and reflecting to all the people that have led to the positive things that were reported in the report.

You know, the record number of jobs in the last 20 years, wages up 30 percent.

When you look at uh in four sectors to prior to the pandemic to now, two thousand more jobs in manufacturing, six hundred more jobs in construction, twenty, five hundred more jobs, education, health services, and a thousand jobs more in the leisure and hospitality industry.

That's over 6,000 new jobs uh relative to even before the pandemic.

So for everyone who has played a part in employing a person in Fort Smith, helping somebody find a job, training somebody for a job, up training somebody for a job, thank you, thank you, thank you, because each of those 6100 new jobs represents a new opportunity and probably a positive development in that person's life.

So thank you to everyone uh who played a part uh in that.

Okay.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you, Director Rigo.

Director Settle and Director Neomart.

Um I got one other question.

Uh a slide that just hit me up.

You said health care is almost right behind manufacturing jobs, is that correct?

And no, I don't think so.

Let me back up real quick.

It's a record number.

But it's a record high for sure.

Record high up.

Yes.

I thought it was close.

I thought it was like eight, it was it 15,000 hold.

So 17.

Yeah, it's real.

Yeah, real close to manufacturing.

So if that shows myth health care is going to start, if that trends up, it's gonna overtake probably manufacturing in the next 15 years or something like that.

Because manufacturers get more technical, more automated, robots, things like that.

So okay.

That's an interesting trend.

I would agree with that.

Um question Sasha and to uh uh Ashley, what what can we do to get the message out that workforce services out there so the public knows that they can get retrained in those areas?

What you know we're a government board, but what can the public do?

What can we do to get the message out to those people that need that extra training?

So I think it's really just understanding what we do, and when you're out and you hear, I know a lot of like the dislocated worker program, they think it has to be a large company closure or a large amount of jobs.

It could be if the laundromat, if um a small business is closing, we want to go in and get those into our dislocated workers program.

So I think it's knowing what we do and being out, and if you hear, send them our way.

Okay.

Thank you.

Director Neil Martin.

Mr.

Ross, two questions.

Does this take into account remote workers that aren't working for a company here in Fort Smith?

So jobs are uh based on location.

So people are based on jobs are based on where the job is actually happening.

So for a remote worker, if the job is happening here in Fort Smith and they let's say it's a University of Arkansas Fort Smith employee and they're working remotely, then we would count that.

If they're working for the University of Oklahoma and living here, we would not count that.

That would be a University of Oklahoma job.

Okay.

That's correct.

The next thing I would I would say is I would like to have this same presentation every year.

I think it would be important for us to see this and see if we can track growth.

I mean, if we're not measuring it, we can't we're not we can't affect it.

So I want to make sure that uh that we see this.

So I I'd encourage that, um, Mr.

Dingman.

I I have a question in that vein.

Are is this level prepared or easily preparable every quarter as you all do the compass report work?

Um we provide the uh compass report on a quarterly data.

Uh it provides most of this information.

Um is it easily preparable?

No, not really.

But it's available.

Yes, it's available.

Thank you.

This is all public data, I should say too.

I would agree with it, at least an annual presentation.

I just wondered if perhaps even uh multiple times a year if we could get it weekly.

I'd have Mr.

Ross here every week to do it.

Director Savage.

Do you track retail at all?

Because I know typically when we look at sales tax um collections, that's that's the biggest driver is retail.

In the compass report, we look at sales tax data uh regularly every quarter.

Uh I didn't include it in this report.

We were really focused on employment and job growth, but we can do that, yes.

No, I'm asking, do you track jobs within the retail sector?

Yes.

Um they're located under um trade transportation and utilities.

Oh, so when we go to uh well, I don't have a slide for trade transportation and utilities because it's it's kind of um it's a job that is uh real important for the community, and you'll you'll find a lot of people that are plugged into that.

The the most biggest concern is the wages are not as strong as we would like in trade transportation and utilities.

Not much, not like it is in healthcare or IT or manufacturing.

Right.

I know there's been some softening in the transportation industry lately.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Any more questions from Mr.

Ross?

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much, Kendall.

Thank you.

This time we'll go to item number three.

Item three is a discussion requested by the board to revisit the topic of an ordinance prohibiting camping on public properties similar to an ordinance in grants pass Oregon that survived the judicial scrutiny of the U.S.

Supreme Court in 2024.

We last considered an item on this topic in December 2024, when after study session discussions, the board was presented an ordinance that was similar to grants pass, but with some minor modifications that would be specific to Fort Smith.

Ultimately, that version of the ordinance was defeated by board action.

Since that time, there has been some community discussion and some separate staff discussion about revisiting a version of an ordinance that would be similar to the grants pass ordinance to would be as similar to the grants pass ordinance as possible.

The draft of that ordinance compiled by the city attorney in late 2024 was included in your agenda packet for tonight's meeting for discussion purposes.

That draft in particular does still need some additional refinement.

Chief Baker is here this evening.

Sean Guard is here this evening.

Okay, thank you very much.

Director Neil Martin, you recognize yeah, I guess I could I could start it because I I talked about this, and you know, we we we disagreed on on this particular ordinance back um uh a couple years ago.

But really it came it came home again when we heard Main Street Fort Smith and the survey that they put out now.

Um in that survey, one of the main uh uh concerns or complaints of people was uh homelessness and safety in the downtown area.

And um I feel like we as a board have got, and this this kind of speaks into what uh Mr.

Ross and and what uh Ashley were were talking about just a little bit ago.

Um, but I feel like we have got to do something or assist in doing something to try to make our downtown thrive, make our downtown grow.

Um, you know, I I hear I hear those exact same things about um their people's concerns about coming downtown.

And what I talked to when we talked about Main Street Fort Smith in that survey, we had you know, a small percentage of users took or a smallest percentage of our citizens took that survey.

There was a really significant number of citizens that didn't take the survey.

And I'm I'm very interested in them, but I think our downtown has a uh a represent uh rep uh uh reputation of homelessness.

We've we've gotten the emails, we've gotten communication on it, and then also um folks don't feel safe coming down.

So I think we we see that anecdotally, and so I think it's up to us to be able to um to do what we can do on our side.

Maybe it's not this ordinance, and and uh maybe it's not this ordinance, but I think we need to strategize as a board about what we can do to help downtown grow, help downtown thrive, and um make it a place where people want to be and are looking to go to for fun, entertainment, um, all those different things.

So that's that's my opening comment on this.

Okay.

Well, I I think it's important when we're talking about this that you know we we know it's not illegal to be homeless, and I think sometimes what gets conflated or used interchangeably is homelessness with vagrancy.

And so when, and this isn't just a problem unique to downtown, it's all over town now.

Um but when I hear from business owners, it's it's people acting unlawfully.

And so I think it it's important as we talk about this to make that distinction.

Um one of the issues that um you know, as I as I've looked into this that we see is there's a mental health crisis, and we don't have adequate resources here.

Um I believe there are some resources identified at the state level that we could be um trying to work on with them to see if we can uh bring our facilities or get a new facility for mental health so that um people have somewhere to go to seek treatment.

Um but I do think it's important as we have the discussion that that we're not lumping, you know, everyone who's homeless in.

We're really and I think that's what you mean.

Yeah, it's it's also being able to connect them with the services that that we offer today.

So I think that's part of it.

Uh a lot of people, I think we we had a lot of people make it appear as though we were criminalizing homelessness.

Right.

And that wasn't my intent at all.

It was more of how can we get them to the services that that are available to them rather than you know uh being unlawful in in in certain areas in in public, those types of things.

Okay.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

You know, I just wanted to point out something that I think I said even a couple years ago, and I'm referencing the memo where it says it's generally agreed by staff that such an ordinance would be another tool available to the police department and code enforcement officials as they respond to citizen concerns about homeless individuals sleeping or camping on public sidewalks.

I asked this question a couple years ago.

Is it not already against the law to sleep or camp on a public sidewalk in such a way that obstructs people's ability to use the sidewalk?

Is there state laws on the books about this current uh policies of the city of Fort Smith that cover this?

What's the current legal picture, Colby?

So there are, you know, when we talk about statutes and tools that's already available for to address some of these issues.

You know, there's a a statute that that concerns disorderly conduct, and this is an Arkansas statute, not talking about City of Fort Smith laws, but it, you know, there's prescribes activity where if an individual engages in such that they can be guilty of the offense of a disorderly conduct if they obstruct vehicular or pedestrian traffic.

So I mean, your question you just posed, presumably, I mean, if the right circumstances, then that individual, if they're blocking traffic, even pedestrian traffic, obstructing pedestrian traffic on a sidewalk, then that can be uh that could fall under disorderly.

Another statute dealing with laundering, uh, it identifies circumstances that create uh a traffic hazard or impediment.

And if a person does that, you know, creates an impediment to uh traffic uh traffic uh impediment, then they could be found guilty of loadering.

And then finally, there's another statute um that deals with obstructing a highway or or even uh again vehicular or pedestrian uh thoroughfare.

And if that's done, then that individual could be guilty of that statute.

So, you know, depending on the facts, that there are on the books, uh Arkansas state law some statutes that address these things, vehicular, you know, impeding vehicular traffic or pedestrian traffic that may fit your your hypothetical.

Okay.

You know, I I just trend more towards the notion, and I've said this over the years about a variety of topics that I'm not a fan of just putting additional pieces of paper in the rule book just to say we quote unquote did something when there are already things in the rule book that could theoretically or not even theoretically could be utilized to enforce uh um against criminal and unlawful activity.

I I think very much that the cause and condition of being um homeless, whether it's you know temporary or medium term or short term or long term, you know, it is not uh in and of itself a crime.

I don't support things that dehumanize people, uh language and conversations and approaches around it.

And I think that it's very, very fascinating topic because it's so relativistic.

If one person has a interaction or an experience downtown that they don't like, does that carry more weight than five people chiming in saying, well, I have a great time downtown and I've never had an issue downtown and I've never felt unsafe downtown.

Everyone's experience about their personal safety is by its very nature very important to them and almost crowds out anything else.

And so it becomes very, very hard when uh actual data about crime or lack thereof, actual police reports or lack thereof, actual efforts from business owners or lack thereof to report uh alleged crimes when that comes into contact with anecdotally driven, experientially driven relativistic experiences that people have, it becomes very, very hard to adjudicate, to to prosecute, to manage as a city, and I don't know that uh there's a one-size silver bullet that fixes this challenge, which is why I think it's a challenge that lingers uh across many communities and in many different areas of many communities.

And so I think whatever we decide to do, I hope it lands on on the side of being humane and recognizing that uh these people are human beings created in God's image, and that there are uh that is a very, very important consideration.

And by saying that, I don't mean to imply that anybody else thinks otherwise, but I just that's what I try to keep in the forefront of my mind when I think and consider policy responses from the government to this issue.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Director Kassavits.

Well, when we talk about what's humane, I don't believe it's humane to enable someone to live on a sidewalk.

We've got to connect these people to services because there are people we saw this in New York with the snowstorm, the people that weren't able to advocate for themselves and they left them and they froze to death, and we don't want we don't want to see that here.

Um I think our if we already have these laws on the books and we're not utilizing them, and Chief, this will be a question for you.

Is it because we don't have services that are adequate for the issues that we're facing?

We are utilizing the existing laws.

I mean the jail stays full with homeless folks.

Um a lot of these, a lot of the the problem folks that I I guess attract the most attention, that they don't want to utilize the services.

And forcing them to do that is nigh on impossible absent criminal charges, and even that doesn't seem to be successful.

Yeah, because when when I talk to business owners, um, you know, what they say is uh you you know their property gets defaced or or things like that, and I think that's what we that's what we want to put a stop to.

You know, um growing up being downtown, you know, we we had the one little old lady that pushed the shopping cart and that was it.

And now it's everywhere you go, all over town, and it's people clearly I see it at the library a lot with mental health issues.

Uh you know, I I don't know that that they're of any capacity to refuse treatment.

Uh you know, how how uh but I think what the problem is is that the treatment is so limited.

You can maybe put them in jail or get get them somewhere for a few days and then they're right back out.

So I think what we we need to look at are longer term solutions.

Wouldn't it would anybody else agree with that?

I I mean I I would agree with that.

I think I'm done.

I'm okay.

I think Director Kent was next in the queue, and then we'll come to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um yes, I would concur with Director Christina Cassavage's comments.

I think until you get like a state legislature or the federal government giving us some funding or recruitment of an expansion of long-term mental health housing, you know, coming back to congregate care for those that are beyond their mental capacity of making choices for themselves.

Uh you're not going to probably solve this problem.

Um back to it, I guess, Chief Baker, more pointedly.

What would this ordinance do that we can't do now?

Honestly, I don't know that I don't see that it's going to give us any more options.

I mean, we've Kobe and I have gone back and forth with this, and um, I mean, the this is essentially site and release.

Um there's a little bit more specific language about sleeping on sidewalks.

Uh I think that some of the issues that our officers have encountered um where people have made complaints or where we see congregations of people in particular areas.

I know um 5th and A is a hot spot, um 6th and 6th Street around the uh next step day room.

Uh and so often the the folks that are loitering lean the sleeping on the sidewalk, they're doing it in a way that doesn't obstruct the sidewalk.

Um I think this ordinance might go a little bit beyond that, and that if a person is just simply sleeping on the sidewalk, then they would be in violation of the ordinance.

Uh but the enforcement mechanism uh is not going to alleviate the problem.

And the officer would issue a citation.

And I guess theoretically, if the person then didn't vacate the area, we could potentially be looking at uh another law being broken and criminal trespass, but even that's going to get dicey on public sidewalks.

Um I mean, to answer your question succinctly, I don't think that it's going to add that much to what we already have.

But I don't want that to be construed as I'm opposed to the ordinance.

No, I appreciate your comments and your sympathetic to it.

Is there ample marketing of the no loadering signs?

I know that I've seen a lot more of those go up.

Is that as that sort of um has that plateaued?

I mean, are people still requesting no laudering signs or have we circulated pretty much the masses of that that we believe we still get requests to occasionally for it?

It's probably tapered off a bit from the beginning.

Uh but we we do enforce them.

Yeah.

I will say on to that point, it ebbs and flows.

I mean, I think here recently we've had an uptick in people requesting them, and then it'll level off for a while, and then new folks will find out about the program and come in and get those signs.

And then I think we have to ask ourselves, you know, shelter capacity.

You know, I know the Hope campus opens up, so no one's gonna freeze because they'll they even are allotted and allowed to be a they allow people to sit in the hallways and stuff so that you will you're not be out when there's freezing temperatures, but you know, do we even currently have sufficient shelter beds if enforcement like this begins?

Um and I would you know, if we're gonna dialogue further into it, and it could becomes an item to a regular meeting, uh, I would like to see you know, how do we make this uh progressive for progress for the individual to services versus punitive actions?

Um, you know, as a person who has many friends in the unhoused community in Fort Smith, just from by nature of what I do for my day job, you know, they have lots of fines on their record, and they have sometimes even warrants, and as soon as they get a public in talks charge or a disorderly conduct, then the judicial system obviously has a flag and they have a they have a wrap sheet of things that they've got to deal with.

But if if you're just increasing citations, you're not really addressing the issue.

And I think the thing that and I don't advocate for this today because I you know want us to stay budgetally operational, but you know, from a city's budgeting standpoint, we have high expectations for this, but we have zero funding for it.

I mean, we're giving pass-through dollars for certain causes, but the city spends zero dollars supporting any agency or whoever to address homelessness.

So I think at some point we have to have realistic expectations because of our unrealistic funding that we've given to the to the cause.

So I mean, when we talk about animals and and and cruelty and and and bad ownership and all of that nature, but it has significant funding.

Um so you know, I don't have answers for this either, then if other than if we did a study session about gathering agencies to tell us the benchmarks of that, and I know that uh uh administrator Dingman, you sit through a community session with agencies all the time, and I mean I wonder what feedback you're getting in that meeting from them.

Um what would they how could we lower it?

The one critique I would offer up to what I've seen and heard is I know that people we talk about the point in time count and they're talking about it going up.

How do we get that point in time count down?

How do we trend this down?

And uh I don't you know like to see the point in time count swelling when there's a coalition of agencies.

If we're coalitioning agencies together, they should we should be thinking about how can we bring that data down?

And I don't know if we just got more accurate, and so it was unfair for what we used to have, but the point in time count has definitely gone up.

And why did it go up?

And listening to those that have their hand to the plow might be a next step for us.

Thank you.

Uh um Mr.

Gard.

Since we had uh our discussion a while back, um, and that measure was defeated.

Uh if you had any observations um in terms of what you see um in uh in your area of expertise versus the ordinance and maybe things changing or ways that we could make changes to an ordinance.

Well, just uh the kind of um uh uh add to what uh Chief Baker was adding.

One thing that we have seen across we've we it seems I will go for a lull for a little bit that will have an uptick in homeless that are showing up.

Um we are dealing with campments and across the entire city right now.

Some of them are very creative, they're actually going underground now.

But I do want to add that the ordinance that it was proposed and checked in section section 16-4 under our nuisance abatement ordinances, we do have a provision in there that prohibits camping items and camping gear being utilized and stored outside unless you're in an approved campground.

So with the help of the Forsmouth Police Department, uh we work closely together with them right now when the encampment's identified, we're contacting the property owner, we're letting them know what's going on in their property, and they're getting cleaned up and they're removing the coverage.

Um we have seen quite a few uh sleeping on the sidewalk and beginning to camp on the sidewalks, but once we're notified it immediately by the PD, or we notify them, we work in conjunction with them, we'll go out there, we'll make contact, we'll show them look, you can't have these items stored out underneath this ordinance right here, and usually within 24 to 48 hours, that stuff is removed.

So we're actively working on it, and uh with what's being proposed within this ordinance.

We have stuff on the books, even within code enforcement to be able to address these items that are being stored outside.

So with the help of what the police department is doing and what we're doing in uh neighborhood services, I mean it's a I'm just gonna put it uh bluntly, it's a constant battle, but we're staying on top of it, and uh once it's once we're made aware of a situation, we address it immediately and it gets taken care of.

Okay.

Well, you know, this seems to be a problem that we've we're we've we've dealt with for a while, or maybe haven't dealt with for a while, um, or we're dealing with.

Um, you know, I I do I do remember Chief Baker saying that downtown area is the most heavily policed area in the city.

Um I think that's true.

Um, you know, but but I I still continue to hear uh when we got a we got an email last year from the uh one of the administrations at Northside High School just out of the blue um about the the issue and the problem.

Uh had a number of people say, you know, that you cross over the bridge and you see Casey's, and it's just a haven for um for loitering and those types of things, and it's just not a good look for the city.

And and you know, we've we've had a number of instances just uh whether it is via via social media or whatever, that I think make people nervous and and don't want to come to the downtown area.

And um I feel fine downtown, I feel fine, but it doesn't mean my wife feels fine.

Doesn't mean my kids feel fine.

And I think we've in until we until we call them all the things have a have a plan of attack um or or or uh change how we do I and I don't know what that is, and I think that's probably what we're struggling with is we don't know what else we could add to this.

Um I think we're still gonna see underperformance of our downtown area.

Um we're gonna see businesses uh leave downtown area.

I know we saw a lot that that came in last year according to um Amanda Hager, but um you know I think we're just gonna continue to see we're not gonna see downtown live up to the potential that I think it could.

I agree with you.

And so I I think that's that's what that's what we have to have to deal with.

And um yeah, I uh I don't I don't know what else to say.

I don't know what to say.

Thank you, Mayor.

Well, I just want to uh ask a series of questions or illustrate a hypothetical so that we all hear it at the same time and and we have the the wisdom and the insight from from the chief and and Colby if necessary.

So if I was a business owner downtown right now, and I felt like somebody was either uh loitering uh on my private properties, business owner, or somebody was uh defacing my property in some way, or somebody was uh being rude either verbally or uh physically accosting customers in some fit form or fashion, and I called the police about this, you all would respond, of course.

There would be walk us through what would happen, because I think it goes into your point that you made earlier about then you start a legal process with an individual who does not necessarily um engage regularly or how they should with the legal process, and then there may be, given the gravity of what they do, there may be some time spent in jail, but it it all just kind of loops around and around and around.

And there may be a situation where you create a deterrent for that person for that individual business, but it doesn't mean that they're not going to crop back up into that region.

And so it I believe it's very challenging to police your way out of a challenge of certain people making other certain people feel uncomfortable, or even people breaking the laws that currently exist around businesses.

And I mean, just what does that actually look like if a business owner calls and says, hey, there's a person who is breaking the law, I think, at my business?

So we address behavior and illegal behavior specifically.

And so if when uh a business owner or anybody downtown calls and makes a complaint of illegal behavior, maybe it isn't even illegal behavior.

We're still going to respond and make that determination.

Um but an officer will show up.

Um we try to interact with folks in a way to um solve the problem in the best way.

Uh if that's directing them to other services, and our officers are trained to do that.

Uh if they're having a mental uh health issue or crisis, we have officers that are trained to deal with that.

Uh but if all else fails, then if there's been a violation of the law, then they will generally be arrested, um, taken to the county jail.

Um I don't know if it's currently the situation, but one of the challenges that we've faced for a long time and continue to face is overcrowding at the jail.

And so we've already incurred a great amount of time taking the officer off the street, money to take this individual to jail because of crowding issues at the jail, they're typically uh given a uh court date and uh signature bond and released, often right back out on the street before the officer even gets their paperwork done.

Um at some point they have a court date set that the roll of the dice of whether they show up to court or not.

Um generally they don't, and so then a warrant's issued for their arrest, and when we run across them again, they get picked up again.

Um as you adequately described, it's often a vicious cycle.

I think may I interject for a moment?

Sure.

If a person has failed to show for a court date, the warrant has been issued for that person's arrest, you come across them again, they are arrested.

Does the fact that they did not show for a court date or court dates, does that usually um put them higher onto the priority list, if you will, to actually be incarcerated, or do the same overcrowding challenges remain?

Yeah, there's typically multiple FTAs before they actually are given any jail time.

And you know, even and I uh I don't fault the judicial system and prosecutor judges, I mean, it's often jail is the only way to affect any kind of change, but that comes at a cost as well.

Um I mean, our our the daily jail rate has continued to go up.

Um I think we're over $80 uh an inmate per day uh in jail fees now.

So uh I mean that impacts bottom lines, it impacts budgets.

And and something else that you mentioned, um I which I think is is exacerbating our problem, is we want to affect change in behavior by whatever actions that we're taking.

And so if we arrest John Smith for any charge, um, and then John Smith leaves Fort Smith or you know, his behavior changes and we don't deal with him anymore, we have a constant steady supply of new homeless people in Fort Smith.

And so that that behavioral change that um we're trying to affect, it doesn't, it doesn't ever really get um spread out to the entire homeless population because that population is continually changing.

So I mean uh you know we can we can can be um heavy-handed with folks and and then we got a whole new batch of folks that we basically got to to train again.

So I think that's contributing to a lot of these issues.

Um but I mean we we always try to take the the action that's going to produce uh the behavior change, the the least uh invasive action to produce the desired change that we want to see.

Now, I will say this.

Um in the last several months, we have taken a zero tolerance approach to observed or reported violations downtown.

Um I have gotten feedback that the landscape seems to have changed in the downtown, but I've also gotten feedback from Sean and others that as expected, we start seeing problems in other areas of the city.

Uh and so you're just I mean, we're just simply transferring the nuisance from one area of town to another with with these tactics.

And we've been doing it for years now.

Thank you, Chief.

Any director Neil Martin.

Well, I I mean to go back to what you said, Chief, new homeless or I can arrival.

New arrivals every week.

Oh, I didn't say a time, but I but I would imagine that's probably pretty close to accurate.

Um I know we've I know we've talked about it, and I think Sean has talked about it before.

But how are the how are they how are they getting here?

Um I mean, are or are they just falling into homelessness as economic conditions are are occurring, are they just falling to homelessness?

No, sir.

I mean, I I'm sure we have those in Fort Smith that are true Fort Smith citizens that are homeless, but most of the folks that uh that our uh officers are are interacting with are from other places.

I mean, we have and and I hate to I hate to keep going back to this.

I'm I'm not advocating for shutting the services down, but I mean as long as we have services for homeless people, we're gonna have homeless folks in Fort Smith.

It's just a fact of the matter.

And as I've said many times, if Fort Smith is going to be a place to serve the homeless, then we have to have clear guidelines about where that's okay.

And I mean it's pretty clear that that downtown is not the place, at least to the downtown folks.

So thank you, Chief.

That was uh that's that's helpful.

I mean, this is this is not this is something that we have heard as well.

And I don't know how we we stop that pipeline coming to us, because it appears that there's a pipeline, whether that's through buses, other municipalities, whatever.

We've got to shut it off.

And and I don't know how we do that.

I've advocated for sending a bill when we identify.

Yeah.

Will we identify somebody bringing someone to Fort Smith, sending them a bill?

I mean, I don't think there's any way we could hold their feet to the fire, but again, as long as we have the services in Fort Smith, their response is going to be just bringing them to the where the services are.

Yeah, so do they do they uh I hear they come via business?

I've heard that rumored.

I mean, I I think the most recent um confirmed, which I say confirmed, it was based on uh interviews with some of our homeless folks and interactions with our officers was a uh facility in Alma bringing them here because they had been kicked out of whatever facility they were in in Alma.

Um we've had instances of law enforcement in Oklahoma bringing folks over here and dropping them out at Garrison Point or at the homeless shelter.

Um That's dirty.

That's dirty.

That is dirty.

It solves their problem, makes ours worse.

Sure does.

Sure does.

Thank you, Mayor.

I I do think that the other side of that continuum of that conversation has to be noted, though.

I mean, am I going to be homeless in our coma where I have little traffic to ask someone for help?

You know, there's no store to stand outside of.

I mean, by nature, metro areas have homelessness.

Uh downtown businesses and metro areas still thrive and still have homeless people around.

I think that we do need to kind of make sure that we balance that conversation.

I I mean, I am frustrated when I hear about law enforcement of other towns bringing people to us.

I mean, to to be I mean, to be funny for just a second.

I mean, you could just have a charter bus and bust them to Hot Springs where they have a city-funded homeless shelter.

I mean, but I think the reality is metro areas are going to have a measure of homelessness.

Um, but just simple ideas, whether this is funded by the nonprofit sector for those that may be watching online, or if this was to be supported in some way through a grant or through city, you know, the more you increase street outreach, you know, most uh agencies in town, I think do not do this.

But street outreach is someone that's going around and talking about, hey, you know, before a cop comes, this is what you need to know.

You can't be here doing this.

Here's places you can go.

Here I can arrange you a ride, you know, they'll come by and they can pick you up and they can help you.

Uh the ESG grant match that the Hope Campus manages.

Just today, I've helped someone out of homelessness utilizing that resource, but it is a reimbursement process.

And sometimes their funding is because it's reimbursement is so low as an organization that they're not able to utilize the maximum ESG allotment that they can spend.

So what you have is they can spend up to this amount of money, but they don't have this amount of money to to initiate for helping someone housed and then get reimbursement for.

So they need a an ability to do that.

Uh one thing that I hope would be pioneered in the future is a community work-based mentor therapy group that allows people who have been uh down and out of their situations to have someone that will help them for a few days of the week, find work, and then a few days go around and just pick up trash in the community.

Uh, one of the areas that I saw in an urban area that was doing well in this was putting people and giving them a sense of dignity again to get back and getting back to work.

And then, you know, we moved the Hope Pavilion from the uh part down here that was sort of out of pocket and was drawing people to that for public feeding.

We moved that over to Hope Campus.

You know, perhaps there's a way that we can start utilizing that greater uh by saying, hey, this is where this is a zone you're allowed to be for loading and for your services, you can't be here, which brings me, I guess a question would be from a planning perspective.

Can we do better by zoning where loitering activities can happen within the city?

Is there any need to increase that?

I mean, uh I would say that zoning is a land use regulation, not a people behavior regulation.

Yeah.

Um, those are funding opportunities that are there.

I know that they've talked about one year they had $300,000 that they could have put in our landlords' pockets, but they did not have the funding to do it.

And that funding would be not just spent, I mean, it would be we would come back.

So it's a reimbursement, right?

So if you spend that out to its max, and then they turn in reimbursement, that could come right back to that fund and just continually be there.

And we, you know, we're not utilizing that.

We're not utilizing the ESG grant funding that we've been allotted for our community, which would help our landlords, it would help some of the unhoused population, as I know the guy that I'm helping, he'll have his deposit and two months rent.

I mean, that's a leg up.

Then he already has a job, he just got.

I mean, it's gonna take that sort of zero-down approach, but obviously we have some influx of people coming as well.

Director Rico.

Well, you know, all I'll say pretty quickly is, you know, and I think we have to give ourselves a little bit of credit here for for the community that we all contribute to and have painstakingly built uh over the years.

You know, I we have um at the church I attend at First Presbyterian, we have a uh dinner the first Sunday of every month that really attracts a lot of you know homeless folks or folks who are really down on hard times, and you spend time sitting and talking to the folks at the table, and you hear from a lot of people who they were attracted here from other communities for opportunities to try and work and to try to improve themselves.

And so wherever community they were at, you know, Tulsa or Oklahoma City or Springdale or wherever or Springfield, Missouri, um they did a little panhandling, they worked what they could, you know, all this to get themselves a one-way ticket here.

And then, as we all know, uh, you know, it's been mentioned many times tonight, and I think it's important.

You know, a lot of folks have mental health challenges, both housed and unhoused.

And you come here, you saved your money, you think you're kind of come and get a manufacturing job because you hear this is the biggest manufacturing job in our hub in Arkansas.

That sounds like something you can do.

I I don't need a degree for that, I can use my hands.

And then just like we all know, it's hard sometimes to get hired.

You know, there's more interviews than you think.

You you walk in and the people all next to you have you know neck ties on, or they ask you a question and it doesn't make any sense to you, and then you've you've spent your last money, you've come here, you thought you were going to start working with your hands, and then you did not pass that interview.

Uh your likelihood to do other interviews is probably diminished because of the I imagine that the shame or the guilt or the humiliation that you feel.

And so then you are homeless at Fort Smith, Arkansas, which was not your intention.

And so I I, for one, am glad um that we have uh people like Ms.

Sharon and others at the Hope campus who work on the front lines every day trying to help people, and I'm glad that there are things like the Hope campus where when people uh encounter our fellow human beings that are in a tough situation, there's at least a place they can point to where they know they can go.

I came out of church a month ago, and there was a gentleman on the sidewalk, he was in real bad shape.

He said, I you know, I need some help, I don't know where to go.

And I said, Well, do you know about the Hope campus?

And he said, Well, I you know, no, I haven't heard of that.

I don't know where that is exactly.

And I said, Well, hop in, I'll take you there.

And I walked him in and got him in with the people at the front desk, and you know, well, I don't know ultimately what happened to him, but I know I didn't have to just turn away from him on the sidewalk and go, hey, sorry, buddy.

Um I'm glad that there are providers who work to try and help people.

Directly savage.

Jeff, do we still have our home reunification program for people like that?

That is worked through the uh the nonprofit agencies when they have funding available for that, then they do rehome folks, but they they do it uh specifically when they have someone on the other end to send them to.

Right.

So if they came here for a job and then it didn't work out, they have a home they can go back to, and we we would assist with that.

Yes, if there is funding available, and like I said, they they depend on um private funding usually for those types of donations.

Chief, how big of a factor do illegal drugs play with this?

Um I I think it's a large problem in the homeless population.

I mean, yeah, we often find paraphernalia uh left behind and and uh evidence of of illegal drug use among the homeless.

Uh I mean I would say it's prevalent.

So if we if we really poured resources into uh you know drug task force getting drugs off the street, do you think that would be beneficial?

Uh certainly that would be beneficial.

I don't know that it would have much impact on on the homeless situation.

I mean, any time we can get more illicit drugs off the street, uh better off we are.

But um, I mean uh again, I think the the root cause, and you talked about it initially was um untreated mental health.

Um which came first, the chicken or the egg, the the drug addiction, the substance abuse or the mental illness.

Um I would never venture a guess at that, but they are definitely linked together, and it's definitely uh uh a prevalent problem with our homeless population.

Uh many of these folks have underlying mental health issues that are not treated or not treated properly, or they're self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, um which exacerbates the problem.

I I've been reading that there's been a lot of drug busts lately.

Seems like y'all are really uh focusing on that.

That's good.

Where are we at with fentanyl deaths this year?

Um fentanyl deaths are down, thankfully, thank God.

Um I think we started to see a little bit of a rise at the end of 2024, and then it started coming down again.

Um unfortunately meth is making a comeback.

I mean, that we really it really never went away, but I mean, we saw you know an increase in opioid uh use and abuse in Fort Smith.

Um we had some deaths.

We had a lot of overdoses as a result of particularly fentanyl, uh illicit fentanyl.

Uh the fact that we had Narcan readily ready readily available on the streets.

Um we prevented, I think, a lot of deaths from that.

Um but unfortunately meth is now key again in Fort Smith, and I think it it's true pretty much all southern states.

Um the the deaths are down to to answer your question.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay.

If not, uh let's take a 10-minute recess and return at 755.

Let's reconvene and we're gonna go to item number four.

Thank you, Mayor.

Item four this evening is a review of security lighting and alleyways requested by the board at an earlier meeting.

The city pays for the operation of street lights on street rights of way and then residential areas, these lights are typically located at intersections and at alleyway entrances.

The pending project to rehabilitate selected alleyways and inviting secure spaces for pedestrians seems to have garnered some interest in further lighting of the alleyways.

Historically, security lighting and alleyways has been the responsibility of private property owners, and they make the arrangement with the electric utility provider to get the light installed, and then they pay the monthly fee.

If the city and if the city undertook such a program of of overall lighting of alleyways, that cost would be transferred to the city.

Furthermore, increased lighting in alleys is seen by some as security measures.

We also hear the opposing view that such lighting pollutes or intrudes upon the quiet enjoyment of backyard spaces.

Uh is here and will further report on this item and answer questions from the board.

And I I'm basically here to answer any questions.

Basically, what we were looking at for on alleyway lighting, that if if we uh added lighting to everything uh to all the what I would say are drivable alleys or open alleyways, uh, it would add about 2,000 lights to our system and would add approximately somewhere in the neighborhood of 280,000 to 340,000 dollars a year to our uh electric bill for lighting.

And I I'll open it up to any questions.

Okay, thank you, Director Rigo.

So that was my question was in that vein.

I just wanted to make sure I was following along correctly that it would be sixty thousand, would it be sixty thousand more dollars than what we're already spending to add the two thousand lights?

Did I follow the memo?

It's anywhere from two hundred and eighty thousand to three hundred and forty thousand.

Yeah, we're we're spending a little over one point four million a year, I see on lights.

Okay, thank you.

And I I appreciate I didn't really have any more uh questions.

I uh you know, I appreciated this information.

Um, you know, because as Jeff mentioned, folks seeing some of the recent lighting projects have reached out just to inquire about you know the feasibility of doing that in a larger basis and what that would cost and things like that.

So having this information, my questions are answered.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Settle.

I thank you.

Uh Matt, did you ever investigate what would cost us to do the lights ourselves?

Um without doing through OGE or Arkansas Valley.

I mean, that's been looked at before, but uh it would be uh taking over the system, I think being a yeah, I'm not really thinking of the system really thinking about if uh if we can buy a light as a one-time cost of X, whatever that dollar amount is, and then we pay the kilowatt per hour rate for the lights are on.

So in there, we've we treat the where the cost of lights are, some number as a capital cost, and then we have what are the kilowatt rate, so we're not paying the nine to thirteen dollars per month for the poll and stuff.

We'd say we can we can go buy that for I don't know, some number.

Two thousand dollars, number, and it's a one-time cost, but we're gonna spend because it's LED, we're gonna spend you know three dollars a year, five dollars a year on that light.

I'm just using example, I don't know what the numbers are, please.

I'm just I just wondering instead of going that route, could we go uh could you look at a different route where we buy the lights themselves, install them ourselves, and then we pay a monthly charge or a yearly charge to OGE because you know, I remember for the longest time was 970,000 dollars is what we paid for all the lights in the city.

Now it's 1.4 million.

Well, is and it's not that's not just something overnight that's been increased.

I know I know it has increased, and and so my my thinking is over the next 10 years it's gonna be over 2 million dollars.

And so I just I just wonder if are we, you know.

State of Arkansas, the cities can be their own uh electrical company if they wanted to.

I'm not trying to advocate that.

Uh but I I think there's got to be some way that we might look at putting the lights up ourselves and then tie them to the grid and pay a monthly fee.

Well, I can't say that is something that we've gone through at least twice, and if not three times to look at that, and and it was never something that came out.

We never came out on the good end by taking over that because we've still have to essentially uh under the the regulations we're under, we'd have to allow OG and E to uh continue to essentially maintain the lights on the system and everything, and and uh so uh it it didn't uh it it what really wasn't a cost advantage to us to do that.

Okay, thank you.

Director Kemp.

Thank you, Mayor, and uh thank you, Mr.

Meeker, for being here tonight to address these questions.

Is are there some lights that are broken?

Have we done an assessment of or the lights have have gone out?

Have we ever thought about just sending out a a night group to just see if there's some polls that we know are out but already put up?

I mean we do from time to time, but most of that comes from reports from citizens and everything, because it the report has to come from us to OGE, and and so we we generally get uh it's pretty much daily.

We'll get reports in from citizens about a street light being out, and we'll make that report to OGE.

But we do on occasion.

I know uh matter of fact, uh that was one of the things we did last summer uh when hesitate to bring up the mosquitoes brand again, but when we stopped mosquitoes brand, we continued our our uh the uh the seasonal own for just a a little bit beyond just to give him some time before his his time was up there, give him a little bit of a a warning before his his time was up.

We we sent him out at night looking and recording recording lights, and that's not the first time we've done that.

We've done that on occasion with with uh various employees send them out at night uh usually about once a year we'll we'll we'll end up doing that.

But yeah, because I just one resident that I was talking to about this, one of the things that they ran into was they needed to their neighbor had tried to call on it and but then they called the wrong person, and then this person was like, No, you need to call, and they told them who to call, and then it was fixed.

But I think if we were to go around and be proactive and finding out where there's a pole that hey, that light's not working and that needs to be addressed, that might help as well.

What about is there any sort of crime heat map that we have to overlay over our streets and where our lights are, and maybe we could focus on those high heat areas?

I would have to defer the chief on that if that's I don't know if I I think he might have slipped out.

I would I would just ask administration maybe that's something we could look into as well, focus concentration where we know we're getting calls.

And I would I would say that we do have that the crime data.

We have we do have heat maps and such, it probably could be overlaid with uh with something that OGE might provide for us to indicate where we have dark spots and we can see where those things overlap.

Just thinking let light expose the darkness where it needs to be exposed.

And then we could take such a map and and have our staff look and research the areas on you know the the hot spots and in that in those areas and what the lighting situation is.

So yeah, and I'll you answered a little bit of this already, but I want to ask just in case you want to clarify how many calls do you get for lights?

Uh it's it's fairly regular.

I you know, I don't have a I don't have a good estimate for anybody.

I mean we get calls every day, so what about a budget?

I mean, if if we if let's say the uh and I don't know if there's a sentiment there among this board yet or not, but if if we were saying yes, go, let's put the lights where you think we should put those lights and take on this budget uh budgetary expense, how does this affect the budgetary structure of your budget for being balanced?

Well, the money has to come from somewhere, and uh you know, of course, we uh we generally run uh uh you know a fairly healthy fund balance and everything, but I mean if we keep doing stuff like this, it's gonna be uh an annual expense, not only an annual expense, as as Director Settle pointed out, the cost is all our utility bills are gonna continually go up, you know, and so at some point, you know, we're we're and we're continually adding new you got to consider too we're our light count isn't fixed.

We're continually adding new lights when we have new developments and everything too.

So we get new lights every year, yeah, uh, that are added to the bill.

So do we really want to take on that burden?

I mean, it might cause us to have money troubles in the future.

I guess it it gives me pause and concern to do that.

Well, and I even wonder as well, uh no, I don't see uh Dr.

Josh or Joshua Robertson here.

Uh I was Mr.

Robertson, I was wondering would be like, is there any exploratory feature?

We talked about solar offsetting city buildings.

Um, and then we have solar offsetting several people within the housing authority within one building that had 400 residents.

Is there any thought of how a solar offset could help our street light even in the future for funding as we're talking about?

That's not going to get any cheaper.

And I wonder if there's some sort of deal that could be made with OGE about that.

The only the question was added on there on solar uh, because that came up.

I know I remember some discussion about that uh on the alley uh re alleyway rehabilitation project.

And uh on ownership and and who's going to end up actually having to take care of them and who has the funding to take care of them.

And uh uh for maintenance on those lines and everything.

Because those batteries uh that are required for those solar uh the solar powered lines, I mean, those aren't gonna last forever, those are gonna go out.

And if you put in a bunch at once, you're probably gonna have a bunch of batteries go out at once, probably a huge expense.

Yeah, and I and I think there are some parts of the town that I'm sympathetic that don't want to have their area lit up more, and then there are areas that do want this lit up more.

I know that Chief Baker did uh come back and maybe I'll re-ask the question here, just maybe see if we can get any sort of consensus in this meeting.

Uh Chief, we were talking about how the police force maintains like crime heat maps over the city.

And I know you you've shown data maps to show where officers are having to respond and higher concentrated areas.

And we were talking about is there maybe a way to collaborate alongside the streets department to see hey, this area tends to get more traffic for officers, and if is there any increase of lighting that we should consider in priority areas and in a phaseable approach?

Sure.

Yes, our you can actually access that information on our website real time, or we can create uh heat maps or crime maps for specific areas of the city.

Um our officers are encouraged.

I mean, that's crime crime control reduction through environmental controls of are a very real thing.

So I mean, if we if we see some place that is dark and we have a lot of calls that area, we usually reach out to Matt or OGNE one to see what we can do about getting lighting in those areas.

I know I, for one, would love to see the streets department be able to work with OGE with the map where these lights are, see about these areas that maybe have high concentration but also have darkness, and maybe have a report back so that we could kind of address those specific areas first and have maybe a more pointed calculated cost versus increasing to 340,000 dollars, which then could balloon up from there.

I think there should be some lighting addressed, and I think we could start with that data that would be helpful.

Yep.

Thank you.

Rick are we go?

I was just gonna build on that briefly and say that you know, if if the if the math is correct, and even if you take the higher number of the $340,000 costs, assuming new poles for every light installed.

And if you're talking about city the total numbers 2,000 lights, you know, that's $170 or so per light.

If we found you know the the targeted areas, you might be able to do a a uh implemented program, you know, phased in over a number of years or a pilot area or something like that uh in the year ahead for a uh budget number that would be um you know very workable, I would say.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions from the board?

Okay.

Any comments?

GFO, thank you, Matt.

We will go to item number five.

Item five tonight is a review of the bids received for construction of the Parrot Island water slide project.

This project was originally bid in October 2025, and the bids received were well outside the project budget.

Subsequently, the project scope was refined, the budget augmented, and a contract for construction of the concrete footings and pump house was awarded.

At the board's direction, the award that award was repealed, and staff again sought competitive bids for the construction pump house scope of the work and separate bids for the aquatics components and plumbing scope of the work for this project.

On March the 5th, the city received three bids for the construction pump house scope and two bids for the aquatics scope.

The bid tabulation results were included in the board's packet for this evening's discussion, and staff recommends advancing resolutions to the March 17 regular meeting to accept the bids and award contracts to the recommended low bidders.

The recommended low responsive bidder for the construction portion of the project is SSI incorporated with a total bid of $1,751,910.

The recommended low responsive bidder for the aquatics portion of the project is Clarity Pools with a total cost bid of $664,200.

The total of both bids amounts to $2,416,100, which is within the dollars appropriated for this project.

The previously approved and then rescinded contract addressed only the construction pump house scope and was approved at $1,739,934 and twelve cents.

So the recommended contract from this process is an increase in cost of $11,975.

We did not yet have pricing for the aquatics portion of the work that we could compare it to the current bids received on March 5th.

With that introduction, I'll turn it to the board for additional discussion or questions.

Thank you.

Any comments from the board.

Jeff Clear uh Clarity Pools.

Yes, sir.

Their bid was the one you just studied, right?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Burton pools also bid on it.

What was their bid?

The bid was $682,500 plus the $32,500 payment performance bond was for seven.

So what would the difference between those two be?

$715,000 versus $664,000 and $200.

So what's the difference between the Burton and Clarity?

$50,000.

$50,000.

But you know, for $50, do you not think that Burton being local company would would we did apply the the city does use a 5% local bidder preference?

We did apply that, and and even after the application of that 5% bidder preference, then Clarity Pool still is the responsive low bidder.

Well, because what I want what I'm I'm right of, Clarity is going to come back when they get started and say, hey, we need to change orders.

Like everybody else does.

All contractors have been informed that this project is not.

We're not going to do change orders unless we have some different changes.

I just think Burton being a local company and and you know, I think they so the bids are final.

There's no more change in bids, right?

Those are the low responsive bidders, yes, sir.

I mean, when we go for it.

If we were to come back and say, hey, we can save some money here doing this, would that be.

That's what we tried the last time, George.

Yeah.

And we waived competitive bidding and authorized projects, then we found ourselves having to do it again.

So that's why we're here now.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Director Savage.

Just uh for clarity, are you now in in favor of the water slides?

No.

But I would rather see a local company get the bid than somebody from Little Rock.

I mean.

I I did have a question about the bond cost.

Um if you look at SSI and Steve Beam construction.

Their bond cost was in line with what their project costs, but when you look at Royal Ridge, their bond cost was $87,000 when the other ones were $17,000 and $19,000.

I I didn't understand that discrepancy.

And and I did not ask them to clarify that.

They were they were not the low responsive bid.

Is that what the bond cost was when they bid the first time?

I understand that that was lumped in together with their overall cost projections, and I did not see a speci a specific amount attributed to the payment performance bonds.

Well, I would say, you know, they weren't the lowest, so that shows competitive bidding works.

That's why we shouldn't be waiving competitive bidding.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Director Kemp.

Yes, Mayor.

Um, I just want to say thank you to the local contractors.

I mean, that is uh this is evidence of you know that things were still above board.

The price point that SSI came back with was five thousand dollars under the Royal Ridge public number, which is fine.

That's part of what bidding does.

But Royal Ridge was the one who approached staff and said there's a way to bring savings.

And then these prices being so close together from Royal Ridge to Burton Pools and Spaws is evidence that they were right.

And uh, though both of those companies are not low bidders, they won't be awarded.

They were the ones that did work hard to bring these savings to our community.

And I want to say thank you to them because before this, the RFB was in a process that was not going to be affordable.

It's still that SSI is the low bidder.

So I mean, to the point I made in public, if if anyone can help us, let's do this.

I mean, these companies came forward trying to help us, and yep, this process now it shows that they were right, and we have a process to move forward.

Well, when you factor in the bond cost, it's almost a hundred thousand dollars more.

Point of order, I have the floor.

So you can talk to the mayor about that one.

But I would say Well, you're just putting out misinformation.

That's not true.

No, it's that's why.

Yeah, I this is me calling and asking why was your bid your bond bid so high?

And I'm telling you what they've told me.

But I'm just telling you what's in the agenda packet.

That's correct.

You'll be next to me.

But to the point I would say is that we we we have this.

Thank you to them that brought this forward.

Um when you see that the other two pool contractors, I mean I know director or administrator Dieman has talked about we didn't receive other bids, but we did get a second bid.

We went back in the process, and we talk about waiving competitive bidding, we've forgotten that all people who issued bids to build a pump house were able to reissue a bid, and they did.

So this is really a third bid for the pump house.

And so at that point, that's where we stand.

Uh I'd like to make a motion that we put this on the next regular meeting to be approved in accordance with the staff recommendations.

I'm gonna go to Director Savage before she was in the queue.

You won't.

No, I was just making the point that it's not it's not within the same amount that when you factor in the bond cost, it puts Royal Ridge at 1,844,000, nearly $100,000 over SSI.

Okay.

We we do have a motion on the second.

Second Director Kemp's motion.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

With that, we will go to item number six.

Item six tonight is a discussion of the management of the water park for the 2026 season.

A request for proposals was issued in December, and we received five responses.

Two of the responses were deemed by the review committee as suitable, having managed parks or facilities of similar size for municipal governments, including ARM and one other company.

Being familiar with the ARM team, the review committee met with the other company to discuss the proposal and approach, and while they offered an affirmative transition plan, they also followed up with a recommendation that the changing operators for 2026 season could be disruptive to the park success for 2026.

Ultimately, the review committee determined that the more time was needed for a proper transition if a change in management were to occur.

Recommending a change would have other challenges well, would have other challenges as well.

But the first and foremost consideration was the impact of the park startup and operation for the season.

With that in mind, County Judge Steve Holtz and I are recommending to the respective governing bodies of the city and county that we enter into a one-year agreement to continue management from American resort management for the 2026 season.

Further, we recommend that we reissue an RFP for management services no later than July with a new agreement starting after the parks 2026 operating season.

This direction would encourage ARM to stay fully engaged in the audit process, which they have been, as well as additional reporting elements and frequency and management review during the operating season.

With that introduction, I'll stand for questions.

Okay.

Jeff, when will the audit be concluded?

I believe it's soon, correct?

Well, they will do they will be on site to do most of the audit work during the month of April.

We anticipate it'll be a May or June delivering.

You know, this just feels like such a slap in the face to the people of Fort Smith.

I public trust is at an all-time low.

And then to continue with this company that led us down this path to these water slides, it's a slap in the face to the people we represent.

I mean, you you continued their agreement from December through now on a temporary agreement.

If you need to do one more month to get the audit done, that's one thing.

But to another year, uh I'm not in favor of that.

Director Neil Martin.

Um I would like to see the bids that we received.

I think that's important for us to look at.

Um I see this agreement with ARM.

Did anything change in the proposed agreement?

Um other than other than removing items that relate to multiple years.

Can could we get a red line copy of changes?

Is that possible?

I believe so.

Okay.

Uh yeah, I want to see that.

And uh it looks like they they did give some projections at the very end of our our document.

It looks like they're they're projecting a I attach I attach their proposed budget for 2027.

Yeah, it looks like they're projecting uh a modest uh surplus this year, about fifty thousand dollars, forty-six thousand dollars.

Um I'm assuming that takes into account additional um patrons due to the water slot.

Not necessarily, no.

I mean, the if the water slides are up and operational during the season, we'll consider that a bonus.

Will they be?

Are they expected to be?

That construction I I can't imagine that they will be uh operational for much more than just a portion of the season if at all.

Okay.

So we've got a we got a mild net gain projected.

So but they did they did tell me that this budget projection was based on not having the slides operational for this year.

So if those were operational, we could see an increase there.

Okay.

Yes.

Director Savage.

I mean, even without the results of the audit, we know they lost an $8,000 check.

I mean, if I were working with somebody that was that negligent, I'd be done.

I I don't know why we're even entertaining this.

Okay.

Thank you.

Are there any comment other comments or questions?

Okay.

Seeing none.

This time we will go to item number.

Jeff, you need a motion to put us on the agenda.

Motion put on agenda.

Okay.

We need a second.

Second.

Okay.

Thank you.

With that, we will go to item number seven.

Uh review of the preliminary agenda on March 17th.

I'm sure you looked at that.

And with that, we'll go to the citizens forum, Madam Clerk.

The first uh is Jimmy Harrison.

And each will have five minutes.

Yeah, my name is Jimmy Harrison, and I want to talk about water bills.

My wife's water bill we paid this live was 13 for 43 cents.

Normally our water bill runs 3402, and it had 38 days on the billing cycle.

I would like to know why he had that many days on the bill clock on normally 30 days.

Somebody answering him?

Yeah, I'd like to know too.

Directly good.

You want to make a comment.

Yeah, so in speaking with um Joshua Robertson, um I actually uh took took your call uh to your concerns to Joshua, and his response to me was uh the delay was uh due to weather.

Uh some days in certain areas they just didn't work, the trucks didn't go out.

Um I don't want to be I don't really want to say more than that because that's all I can really remember it was rather weather related, but you know, some of the trucks were able to go out uh certain locations and some were not.

Some days I don't know if anybody went out, but he did say it was all weather related, and we did speak to the fact that that even though this billing cycle was 38 days, your next billing cycle would be shorter, so you'd see the the not any savings, but you would see the um the that shorter amount of charge on your next one bill.

Okay, all right.

Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff, would you be would you make sure that you or Maggie follows up with Jimmy and Linda and just as a uh a real uh personal touch with them on this, you know, Jimmy and Linda are here uh each and every week, rain or shine, uh meeting with us, talking with us, learning about the community.

Um sorry uh that there was that that it was different and that there was a disruption and that there was something uh that was out of the normal habit with y'all and that it that it was frustrating.

Um so if you guys could just please follow up with Jimmy and Linda and and thank you, Director Good as well for the work you've already done too.

Thank you thank you, Director.

Thank you, Jimmy.

Okay, thank you all.

Okay, thank you.

Next we have Shane McKinney.

Hi, everybody.

So uh haven't spoke to you guys in a few days, it seems like a couple months, because I haven't had a whole lot to say.

We've been working on a lot of things, but I wanted to make this announcement publicly before I started doing this.

We have uh finally gotten back our petition from legal.

So starting tomorrow, we're gonna be petitioning to change the government of the city of Fort Smith from an administrative form of government to mayoral form of government to put on the ballot in November.

Um we uh we've been putting a lot of effort into this to make sure we do it correct.

I feel like I found a lot of supporters and a lot of people that are ready to make a change.

I know that you guys are about to start an administrative search, and I feel like this is going to probably become a challenge for that.

So my suggestion is this: it's possible for the board to decide to make a motion to vote on changing our government to an mayoral form of government instead of administrative form of government instead of waiting for this petition to come through.

We only need 2,619 signatures to get a vote on this.

I've gotten a petition with 29,000 signatures submitted in Crawford County before.

It's very likely that we will succeed in doing just this.

Um but while we're doing this, I'm gonna be doing PRs, we're gonna be doing public announcements frequently.

It probably isn't going to help the administrators search during that time.

Um I think the writing is on the wall that the citizens don't like the way our government has been deciding things for a very long time.

And I think it's time that we separate the executive and legislative parts of our government and create two different entities with two different balances.

Um I think the citizens are in favor of that, and I think you'll find it's something worth considering.

I do think it'd be less painful if it came more quickly than we put an administrator in, and then we immediately have this change, and we possibly end up with a uh less than spectacular person because they're worried about job longevity knowing what we're trying to change.

So I'd like to create a discussion around that.

Uh at least bring it forward to all of you at once.

I've talked to several of you independently, but I think this is an issue worth discussing.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Next we have Gary Podgerski.

Good evening.

Uh just to go over the night's agenda.

So on item number one, I asked that the board direct the city engineer to take in consideration the uh cemetery and the major dates that are coming up.

So that would be Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and Reeves Across America.

I'm not asking that you guys stop construction or slow construction or anything like that, but that you ask the engineers and maybe the cheap acre to come up with a good traffic plan because uh the cemetery is gonna be packed on those days.

Number two, uh I don't have anything, uh, but number three, I want to make sure um that the board is aware that any veteran, any veteran that is homeless, can go through the VA and get shelter, period.

End of sentence.

Okay.

So uh there are services over at the CBOC that uh those veterans are able to use.

You know the slides for the necromancy water park that never dies.

Uh I'm not even gonna go to that, but I I do agree with uh director Christina Chastavich.

Uh ARM needs to go.

I mean, they they absolutely need to go.

That the I I don't understand how anybody can conduct business like that.

And with that, uh City Clerk, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Next we have Joey McCutcheon.

Thank you, Joy McCutcheon, Fort Smith.

Um I would like to talk about the military project for a minute.

Um seems like the board is just delegated every single ounce of uh authority to the chamber of commerce, and to me that's a little bit sickening.

Uh more than a little, actually.

You know, I had one board member tell me that when we have a massive, what is it, a Boeing 737 fly in Air Force jet?

Didn't even know that they were coming into town.

I wonder how many of you did.

That's we've spent close to my understanding is 11 million dollars on this project.

We hear almost zero discussion in these board meetings.

The chamber doesn't run this city.

And I would like to know when our Fort Smith police department is escorting all the highfalutin folks around and having fancy shin digs at at Hearts Grabble Country Club.

Who's paying for that?

Who's paying for the security detail?

Who requests the security detail?

Does Tim Allen get to request a security detail?

I mean, we send our mayor, a ceremonial mayor, to speak to Mr.

McKinney's point.

We send him to Singapore on a staying at a five-star hotel on our dime.

That's wrong.

If we're gonna send someone, it needs to be the city administrator who supposedly runs this city.

I support what Mr.

McKinney said.

I think we need a change of the form of government.

We dealt with Carl Gaffkin forever.

And the board, for whatever reason, didn't have the political courage to terminate him until not only did he call a citizen stupid, he also performed the massive cover-up of what was on video tape.

But the board, I think this board seems to be comfortable with the idea that that they can control the city administrator.

We need to put the power in the people.

And we need, if a mayor is going to take responsibility and get credit for the project, then what we need to do is have a strong mayoral form of government, like virtually every city in Arkansas has.

I'm here today as a citizen, a resident, uh, but I ask I ask that you listen a bit differently tonight with what has been spoken and what I have to say.

I actually come to represent a higher place or a higher kingdom.

I come in the name of the Lord thy God to tell you that there is a way to seek the presence and the power of God to find the answers that you need.

In Romans 13, it tells us that you as city leaders are ministers here placed by God to do good.

And I know some of you recognize that, but behind the scenes we have challenges, and there is adversary that is tempting some of y'all to make decisions the way y'all have always made them.

I believe the uh heart level check here tonight is for you to understand that the enemy, there is an enemy to this city, and uh he's caused illegal actions, immoral behavior, and unlawful influence, not just in this governing board, but throughout this city.

We sat here and for an hour heard about a statistic dealing with jobs and dealing with families.

Um I believe it's a spiritual battle that we're facing.

Uh I believe that we have an authority that we could come under as a board.

I believe if you would call on God's name and seek him together in prayer, and we as a community would seek God together in prayer, I believe we could get answers.

Colossians 2.15 says that the enemy to this community and to this city has been disarmed.

And I believe what the word says, and so I'm here to declare a decree of restoration over this city.

And I'm here to speak to your hearts tonight and to your life, understanding that the power and authority that's trying to rule is being dismantled.

And if it takes the city government to be dismantled, and we have to put a mayor that will lead this city with some kind of spiritual authority and some kind of gumption to speak truth and not waver in that truth and not make back room deals, but do it with integrity and admit when they're wrong, then that's what it's going to take.

I believe what it says in John 16, 11, it says that we've been given this authority, but I also believe that God is our judge.

And there is a judgment on this city right now, and there's actually a judgment on this board.

To the mayor and to you board members, you are the gatekeepers of this city.

Your pen and your voices carry weight in the natural, but they could carry more weight in the supernatural.

I've been coming for over two years, and there's things that have been on my heart for two years that I've wanted to say, but I didn't feel like it was time to say them.

But tonight, for whatever reason is the night.

And in Isaiah 1027, it says the word say that the that there is a burden that shall be taken away off thy shoulders, and the yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.

I believe that yoke it wants to be lifted off, but the problem when the yoke is lifted off, you as a leader have to understand how to destroy that yoke.

If you want to fix homelessness in this community, there's a way to fix it.

But it won't come through your good ideas, and it won't come through government money or grants.

It will come right out of the throne room of God, and we can be a people of God to honor him, and he will give you the answers that you need.

I don't know what y'all are doing up here, and I don't know why you're doing things the way you are, other than it's been you've listened to the wrong voice.

I believe we can move past this.

I believe we can get to a place of mere beyond mere survival of maintaining jobs to a place to where we can actually have growth.

And I believe that we can actually get to a place of alignment with peace for our economy and safety for children, for families in this community.

I believe there's an answer, and I believe the answer again won't come from your mind, it will come from another realm.

So I'm here to declare a spiritual right tonight.

Luke 10, 19 gives us the power to tread on the power of the enemy.

And I want to decree the seeds of righteousness over this town of Fort Smith, that everything that is decided will honor him, and it'll be a good seed that is planted in good ground.

I want to decree that the thorns of this world and the cares and the affairs will not take hold.

And I rebuke Satan right now in Jesus' name.

And if he's battling in your mind and your heart and you can't receive this, I I'm not hurting, I'm not coming after you.

I'm coming after the enemy that has deceived you.

And I decree this last thing that the policies that pass in this room will contribute to changing this community and changing lives for all eternity.

Thank you.

Next we have Crystal Cadelli.

Good evening, board.

I am very excited to hear that Fort Smith has been named finalist for the Elon Musk Boring Company project.

Opportunities like this can bring innovation and attention to the city.

And I fully support pursuing any creative solutions that strengthen our infrastructure.

However, the city needs to be transparent with the people of Fort Smith.

The tunnel is not a solution to our water infrastructure transmission line problem.

That per that project alone is estimated to cost between 150 and 225 million.

We are also facing the challenges of the consent decree.

While I'm grateful that the city received additional time, I disagree with the statement that it's behind us.

In reality, we have simply traded an immediate problem for a future one.

The city reallocated the bridges, streets, and drainage tax to help fund the consent decree.

What will our streets and our drainage look like in 30 years?

If we are not careful, we are setting up our children and our future Fort Smith residents for the same infrastructure and financial burdens we are currently facing.

We already have serious drainage issues throughout the city, so severe that in some cases the city is purchasing flooded properties instead of fixing the problem.

I say all of this not to be negative, but because I believe we must refocus our priorities.

Strong infrastructure and low cost of living attract people.

People attract businesses and businesses bring jobs.

That is how a city grows.

Decisions for the people, not for ourselves.

And that's what I'm seeing a lot of.

I keep coming, not because I love to spend my time here.

I'd rather be with my family.

I'm not getting paid to be here.

But I do it because I love the city, and I want the best for the residents of this city.

I want our children to grow up and have children of their own that remain here.

And as the gentleman spoke earlier, the city is flat.

It's not growing.

It's not affordable.

Our housing is not affordable.

Our water is not affordable.

What's going to keep people here?

What's going to get people here is for us to do what is right and to fix our infrastructure and to bring businesses to Fort Smith.

Thank you very much.

Next we have Richard Morris.

Richard Morris.

Hello everyone.

I think five minutes is too much.

We gotta change that.

Um I'm here to give uh credit and praise to the various departments that I deal with frequently.

And it starts with the people who answer the phone all the way through the boots on the ground.

And I believe in being a proactive citizen quietly, and I'm finding that despite all the complaints we're hearing, on the north side of town where I live, which you think is most neglected, I'm getting a lot of help out there.

All you gotta do is pick up the phone.

So whether it's administration, finance, internal audit, the city clerk, the police dispatch, animal uh services, the fire marshal measuredly, I dealt with them, streets department, neighborhood services, building permitting inspections, solid waste, planning.

And I think I ran out of fingers, but uh to counter, but uh yeah, for anybody uh wants to bad mouth the city.

Well, I'd be glad to sit down with them and give credit where credit is due.

So thank you, everybody.

Um there's something I learned here, which is uh defined as an opportunity by the U.S.

Air Force.

And I wanted to share that with you because I've spoken with the state representatives, state senators, um with the Chamber of Commerce, and they never got back to me.

I a couple hours ago I emailed the board links to this information, and uh in a nutshell, let me read you.

This is from this is from Defense News uh January 29, 2026.

U.S.

Air Force looking for contractors to train foreign pilots.

U.S.

Air Force is looking for contractors who can train foreign pilots receiving American military aid according to an Air Force request for information.

Training in which we conducted at bases in the continental United States includes instruction in a variety of combat and non-combat missions and using numerous types of demilitarized or commercially derived aircraft.

That means other than the F-35.

Well, I would like to see Ebbing Enforcement become the epicenter of training for foreign pilots worldwide.

Nobody at the chamber seems to know about this.

Some representatives I spoke with don't know about it.

Uh it's in the nascent stages, it's just beginning.

I like to somebody uh see somebody pick up the ball and run with this and promote it.

I would ask uh Mayor McGill, when you were in Phoenix recently, it just never come up in conversation.

Okay.

So um, and if it didn't, well, it's new.

Now the dates involved here from the Air Force's own uh uh notice here.

It says that published date was January 28th, a response date by March 4th, and inactive date March 19th.

And any late comers uh won't be considered in this marketing and research study.

So the title that the Air Force puts on this is the Foreign Military Sales Advanced Training on Commercial Derivative Aircraft, CDA, and demilitarized aircraft capability assessment as a mouthful.

So I hope this is an opportunity we can get in on real early.

We we've demonstrated this community is receptive to the Air Force.

There's a culture here.

The Air Force has been here for long before I was born.

Uh I think maybe I'm older, maybe I'm not as old as I think.

Okay.

Anyway, I got it backwards.

But anyway, the uh there's something somebody needs to look into and capitalize on his economy because the last thing I want to see is some other air base gets this and demonstrates they're far superior, and when the political things happen where maybe the F-35 is gonna be relocated or something like that, uh foreign militaries are starting to build our own F-35 type aircraft, so nothing's a guarantee.

So let's get in on this early.

I don't know who to call.

Um I've never received a call back from the Chamber of Commerce, which is very disappointing to me.

Um that's all I have to contribute.

So I figured I'll bring it to the leadership.

And check your email.

You've got the information.

And it looks promising to me.

So thank you.

Next we have a Quentin Cunningham.

Hello.

First, I want to say I was sitting at home watching this, and some of the comments made about homelessness made me get dressed and come down here to speak.

And I just got to say this is my third or fourth time talking to the board about this.

And it's it's so frustrating because it's a cyclical argument and it's always the same friction points.

Nothing ever gets done when we don't face this the right way.

Nobody is going to understand this just being homeless until it happens to you.

I hope it doesn't.

I really don't.

I've been through it.

It is awful.

But I want to tell you a new story I have to add to my own.

December 16th, a friend of my family, his house burned down.

1801 South Pea Street here in Fort Smith.

He was a cook at Diamondhead 2 for about 20 years.

He had nobody.

Had me and my family not been there, guess what?

He would have been homeless here in Fort Smith.

People ask how it happens, things like that are how it happened.

I work in law.

I have so many clients that have car accidents.

That completely messes up your life.

All it takes is one paycheck for most of America, and you're in homelessness.

Homelessness doesn't just appear on a bus, it happens to our citizens.

I have been in Fort Smith for 32 of my 36 years.

But at the same time, we've really got to look at this the right way.

Vilifying the services and the people like me doesn't help.

And speaking of villainy, I just wanted to throw this out there.

I started writing fiction last year.

You know what the most upsetting piece of feedback I got was?

I wrote one of the villains in my story about some of the stuff that happens in our city about you know our homeless people are stray animals.

I got feedback saying the villains were too cartoony and unrealistic.

So think about that.

Next we have Sarah Harrison.

Hi everybody.

How are you guys doing?

So I am Sarah Harrison.

I'm running for mayor, so I got to talk to a whole bunch of different people by doing that.

And so I've got a couple questions for all of you.

Um first off, thank you for your time tonight.

Second off, uh I run a volunteer network called the Avo Group, and we feed people downtown, excuse me, I'm suffering from allergies.

We feed people downtown uh regularly.

We take them um bags of what we call blessing bags with different uh toiletries and stuff like that.

And so I want to know is the city tracking cleanup and patrol costs tied to uncoordinated downtown feeding sites?

And has the board ever considered moving those efforts into a coordinated accountability zone such as Hope Campus?

Anybody?

Well, I think I mean not specifically, but I think I think part of that discussion regarding the relocation of the Hope Pavilion from Hope Park to the Hope campus was a part of that part of starting that discussion.

Yes.

And then the tiny homes, did that ever become a thing?

Is it going to be completed?

It's going to be.

It is.

Okay.

Miss uh Ms.

Chapman back there leads that effort.

Okay.

Um just got a building permit for five million bucks.

Awesome.

So are we still cutting police positions?

Because if so, how are we supposed to enforce these ordinances?

How will the city maintain the enforcement capacity with fewer officers?

Officers we cut were part of specialized unit, a crisis intervention unit.

Those same officers are still performing that work.

They're just in a regular unit.

They're not in a specific unit of their own.

Also cut someone at the front desk at the uh police department, and then I think there was a property crimes investigator that uh that position didn't get filled.

These were all open positions, I might add.

Okay.

All right.

And then now that you guys have addressed the 2026 deficit, what long-term safeguards are being put in place to prevent similar budget gaps in the future.

We're we are breaking even for 2026.

That was our that was our goal.

Um we've been positive eight out of ten years.

The last two years we saw that that was an issue, and we're in reverse that.

So we're we budgeted even uh in the general fund.

I mean, there's there's four other funds here that we're talking about, but we we I mean the goal was to cut 70 some odd open positions, um cut other items of um a mosquito spraying, you know, all these different things.

We we we made a decision to cut.

Okay.

I would add to that that we're doing also doing more active quarterly budget reporting than we've done in the past, particularly over the last two years.

Um the board has expressed interest in more regular quarterly type of budget review on the on that reporting.

And so I think that will help uh keep everyone on this dais and all of staff uh mindful of what our spending looks like.

Okay, good.

And then um that was all of my questions.

I do have an outside of the box idea before.

Um what do you guys think about using the higher ground non-flood prone areas of the acme land to build more tiny houses?

Well, we weren't building the tiny houses, that's through a a nonprofit organization.

So would that be something that we could get behind?

Yeah.

I mean that would put us in the the uh the I mean that would that would be in uh in a the homelessness uh provider uh business.

I don't I don't know if I mean we've got we've got providers that do this, and that's what we want to we want to lean into that as much as possible.

Um you know, recently next step changed their mission from a from a uh the next step day room into a non-congregate housing model, which we we're supportive.

It's over there by the Hope campus.

Um so I mean I think those those two entities and others, I mean it's not just those aren't the only two.

I think they um they do a good job uh serving providing services for our homeless folks.

What about job fares?

Have you guys thought about job fares for people who need jobs?

Because a lot of people out there are having problems finding jobs, at least the people that I'm talking to.

I know the chamber had a job fair no later than a couple months ago, and I know that today there was a bunch of uh companies at peak interviewing students.

Okay, good.

And so that's out there already.

And also think there's those kinds of services at Hope and Right, and maybe with next step as well.

Those they they you know they're they're trying to get folks out of homelessness into uh into home homes, jobs, those types of things.

But I would think also that the ladies that were here earlier with Western Arkansas Planning and Development District and the operation of the the uh grants that they that they facilitate, uh they do try to re do that outreach towards uh folks that are job seekers.

All right.

Well, that was all of my questions.

Thank you guys for your time.

Madam Clerk.

And last we have Sharon Chapman.

Good evening.

Hey, I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes um just to answer a couple of questions that came up earlier.

Um, yes, we still have our bus ticket reunification program.

We still have money.

Um this is of course um people have to be willing and wanting it for us to help them go somewhere else, and we have to have a place for them to go, unlike some places that do send people here that we were talking about with Chief Baker.

Um we definitely seen play other places like from Little Rock and stuff send people here but without calling to see if there's a bed.

So that does happen.

And it's not just a problem for Fort Smith, it's a problem all across the country that this does happen.

Like you said, in metro areas, we are kind of the collection point for people who are looking for opportunities and services.

And so that definitely happens, but we do have bus ticket money.

Um thank you to First Presbyterian Church.

We just have a grant for some more bus ticket money.

Um we also do have a street outreach program.

Uh Director Kemp, we have street outreach going on three times a week, one volunteer two days a week with staff.

Um I don't think that the information is the problem with our homeless population.

Occasionally you may come across someone who doesn't know about the next step day room or about Hope Campus, but in general, I think almost all homeless population that we serve and that other serve that we come across pretty much know about the services here, but we cannot force them to participate in those services.

And they do have the free will to either go into shelter or not go into shelter, and so I don't think it's a matter of them not knowing about the services.

I think it's a matter of them getting to a point where they're willing to accept the services, which is part of what Quentin said is a complicated part of serving um the unsheltered population.

Um I also wanted to say that one of the ideas that has come up in the past is if we are going to, as a community, decide to have no camping throughout our community.

At one point, when Chris was the director of Hope Campus, he suggested that they might be willing to do a designated camping behind their building where they're right there with services, and that at least gives us an opportunity to have a place to take them since as we heard jail is full.

So if they're doing something illegal, obviously we need to address that, but have it in designated camping area, maybe something that we want to consider as a community.

And so I'm just open to any other questions about homelessness.

I would encourage, since our homeless agencies do meet periodically with our city administrator, that it could be something that we as an entire group could schedule so that you could have all of us in one spot answering questions about homelessness.

Okay, thank you very much, Sharon.

Any questions for Sharon Washes?

Okay.

Okay, thank you very much.

That's all.

Okay.

Thank you.

Motion to adjourn.

If there's nothing further, entertain a motion.

We got one from Director George Savage.

Thank you.