Good evening and welcome to the Fort Smith City Board of Directors meeting on this July twenty first of twenty twenty-six.

Uh keep in mind these meetings are being televised live for the benefit of our residents who cannot be with us in person.

At this time, I'm going to uh ask uh Director Rigo if he would do the invitation for us, and Director Neil Martin, uh, do the pleasure.

Thank you.

Please bow your heads and join me in a word of prayer.

Lord, we come before you tonight uh grateful, grateful for the sunshine, grateful for the opportunity to be here together tonight.

Uh, we ask for your wisdom to come over to our meeting this evening and to continue to bless us and our community and everyone within the sound of our voice with the opportunities that you continue to shower on us.

We're so very grateful for those opportunities, and we come before you humbly in prayer tonight.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

This time, Madam Clerk, would you please call the role?

Directors regarding here.

Good.

Here, George gets having present.

Christina's gets out of it here.

Settled.

Here, Martin.

Here.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

At this time, I would ask if there's any uh presentation by a board member on an item that's not already on the agenda.

Okay, seeing none, we will ask for approval of the July seventh.

So, thank you.

All in favor.

Thank you very much.

We've got one of our very own that we do want to recognize.

And we want to recognize our own police officer, uh, Officer Cal Newman.

Uh and if you've been keeping up, you know his story of bravery and commitment to this city and to the work that he's doing with us.

So I do have a proclamation.

So if I can get the board members just to join me down front.

Come on, Joey.

Mr.

Officer Newman.

Go ahead, son.

Officer Newman, if you could come down and join us.

Thank you.

Do you want a microphone?

Okay.

Thank you very much for for joining us, Officer Newman, and thank you for being with us as well.

City Fort Smith proclamation recognizing Officer Cal Newman for his bravery and dedication.

Whereas the Fort Smith Police Department stands as an emblem of safety, security, and community engagement, and whereas Officer Cal Newman has faithfully served the City of Fort Smith as a member of the Fort Smith PD since January twenty-seventh of the year 2025.

And whereas throughout his tenure, Officer Newman has distinguished himself through his commitment to excellence, community engagement, and public safety, while demonstrating unwavering professionalism and dedication to serving the people of Fort Smith, Arkansas, with integrity, honor, and selfless devotion.

And whereas on the morning of May first of 2026, Officer Newman responded to what appeared to be a routine incident.

And during the course of driving while intoxicated investicated investigation, he was critically wounded in the line of duty while attempting to protect the public and uphold the law.

And whereas despite suffering life-threatening injuries, Officer Newman stands here this evening, demonstrating extraordinary courage, resilience, and determination through how throughout his recovery and inspiring his fellow officers and the Fort Smith community with his unwavering strength and perseverance.

And whereas the City of Fort Smith proudly recognize Officer Cal Newman for his selfless service and the bravery and his steadfast devotion to the principles of justice, public safety, and the protection of our community.

Qualities that exemplify the highest ideals of law enforcement.

Now, therefore, our George B.

McGill, the mayor of the city of Fort Smith, Arkansas, do hereby proclaim July the twenty-first of the year 2026 as Officer Cal Newman Day and in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

I encourage all citizens to join me in celebrating and acknowledging the outstanding bravery, dedication, and sacrifice of Officer Cal Newman.

So let us come together as a community, express our gratitude and appreciation for his unwavering service.

Thank you very much, Officer.

Let's please recognize Officer Newman one more time.

Would you please thank you so much.

Mayor?

Yes.

May I say something?

Yes, yes, you recognize it.

Any other board member if you have comments, you recognize it.

We are so grateful to Officer Newman for his service for the fight and the strength that he showed.

We're thankful to everybody who prayed for him and pulled for him.

And we're so very grateful to all the doctors and nurses and friends and family and everyone who cared for him.

Just a tremendously heroic story that'll inspire us forever.

Thank you very much.

Anyone else?

Yeah, uh a lot of prayers went out for that guy and his wife and his family.

Um for protecting us.

And I know there's people here, there's some there's some first responders that are here that want to want to meet with you that have some things that uh they want to give you.

But um we are so grateful for what you've done and your sh your fight, and we're grateful to see you standing right here.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay, thank you very much.

At this time, we will go into the citizens' forum.

Um the purpose of the citizens' form, and I'll read this every time we get here to this point.

Purpose of the citizens' forum is to provide Fort Smith residents an opportunity to address their board of directors on any topic related to city business and operations.

Speakers shall direct their comments to the entire board and other attendees are expected to respect the speakers at that time.

Rules of the quorum with respect to this meeting, the citizen form and citizens' comments of any item on the business are posted on the monitors and are included on the sign of sign-in sheet.

Please keep in mind this is a business meeting of the governing body of the city of Fort Smith, and all speakers and attendees are expected to follow the rules of the Corps.

And with that, Madam Clerk, who's our first speaker?

We do have several.

Some reasons to consider it.

I feel like it would keep local dollars in Fort Smith, increase cell tax revenue for the city, support local, give consumers and businesses a choice, and let the community have the conversation.

I also know that things everything comes with pushback.

So some of the things that may be a concern is we don't want to encourage more drinking.

This proposal doesn't create demand.

They're simply leaving Fort Smith to make those decisions.

These are just people of public interests.

There are a thousand of these.

Thank you.

Next we have Natalia Deer.

Hi.

So tonight I would like to talk about um bathrooms.

So sorry.

Um so I go to the riverfront park and I like to go down there and hang out to look at the river or just walk around, and there are no bathrooms down there.

And so I made a video complaining about this, and I posted it on the Fort Smith group, and it kind of blew up.

And then shortly after that, like a couple of days, the bathrooms at John Bell Park were opened.

Um but also I would like to address that it while it is down there in the same area, it is also very inconvenient because you have to actually pack up and drive all the way down to John Bell Park, which it's not that far, but it's kind of far and inconvenient because I actually went to just look at the river and then I had to go to the bathroom, so I went, and then by the time I was done using the bathroom, the rain had got there, and so I didn't get to enjoy the park that day.

So I had to wait till the next day that I had available to go to to the park.

And also other people that are down there enjoying the park by the riverfront by the amphitheater, they're not able if they're pregnant or if they're fishing or whatever they're doing down there, like they have to pack up and leave the area just to go to the bathroom, and it's actually really inconvenient because you only get a certain amount of time to hang out down there, and then when you have to use the bathroom, you have to leave.

And some people don't want to go back because it's a hassle to just like and if you have children, it is a hassle to pack your children back up and go all the way back to the park.

And then not only that, a lot of people will disagree with me, but I don't care.

Umeless people, they do hang out around there, and it's not just about the homeless people, but I do see it as inhumane because they are human beings too.

They don't have anywhere to use a bathroom down there, and a lot of people will say that they can go to the day room or to hope campus, but if you look at how far the day room is or how far Hope campus is from that area, let's just be real.

Can you hold your bow movements that long to walk all that way to there if you are homeless?

And you know, homeless is an issue, and I've heard at a few of these events that I've been going to, like a lot of people have been complaining about the tent city.

But I would just like to say that a lot of these people that are addressing how scary and how much of an issue it is for the tent city being there, they have never actually been homeless, so they don't know what it is like to actually live down there, and yes, a lot of those people have mental issues and stuff like that, or they're from the military and they're just they're homeless.

I would like to see I would like I don't have that many friends or whatever, but I would like to put together a group of people and you know go down there and mentor these people, and some people they don't want it, but I understand because I have actually been in their shoes, and a lot of these people they don't like society because of money or just like a lot of people are bullies in in especially just in our town of Fort Smith, Arkansas, we have a lot of bullies, and I'm sure that you can see on the internet there are bullies in this area.

There are, they're straight up bullies, and it's not right, and it's all walks of life.

But also, I just wanted to say that I looked up, so I went to the um Fourth of July thing and I seen porter potties there.

Um I looked up porta potties, they are like a hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred, but if you buy one, it's three hundred to four hundred, that's the cheapest one for the crapper king.

And sorry.

But and then the next available one is 700 to a thousand, and that's to buy it and to have it there and to have it emptied monthly is three hundred dollars.

That's a hundred and seventy-five to three hundred and fifty dollars.

But I do know that there are bathrooms there on the riverfront that are closed.

But if we did open them, we could hire someone which would open a job.

We could hire someone to come and clean them weekly or daily if needed be.

But thank you.

Next we have Wendy Peer.

Good evening, Mayor and Board members.

My name is Wendy Pierre, and thank you for allowing me to speak tonight.

The issue I'm going to talk about is data centers.

There are currently 12 data centers in the state of Arkansas, with the closest one in Clarksville.

As these projects continue to spread across our state, I believe Fort Smith has an opportunity to be proactive rather than reactive.

After attending a panel discussion on this issue, I found out some of the major issues with data centers.

Several different concerns were brought up repeatedly.

And I'm going to talk about two or three of them.

The first is the electricity.

Some of these companies have proposed generating their own electricity, but that also comes with the second issue, and that is noise.

Because they use these generators that sound like jet turbines.

And they also emit some air emissions, sorry.

But we already know what it's like to have to uh live with the military jet noise that we do today currently.

We don't need to be adding any more industrial noise to our community.

Second is water.

Many data centers use a huge amount of water to cool their systems as our population grows and weather patterns become less predictable.

We should ask whether this is the best use of one of our most natural reliable resources for this area.

And you know Fort Smith's already challenged with our water system, and we should be cautious about adding another major demand onto our system.

The important thing to remember is that once these facilities are built, their impacts are difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.

I want to be clear though, I support technology.

Fort Smith is working to build a great city that families, businesses, the military want to invest in and want to be here.

We enjoy a quality of life that we should protect.

This past June, our neighbors to the north, Fayeville, they passed some strict regulations governing some of the data centers in their area.

Tonight I'm asking this council to begin developing our own policies and join uh zoning regulations that would prevent large-scale data centers from locating nearer within Fort Smith.

We need to make it clear that these facilities are not compatible with our community unless they can fully protect our infrastructure, our natural resources, and our neighborhoods.

I also ask each member of this board to commit to complete transparency in any discussions or negotiations developing the data center.

The people of Fort Smith deserve to know what's being proposed before the decisions are made, and we should learn from recent controversies like the proposed prison in Franklin County.

Thank you for your time, your service to our community, and your thoughtful consideration.

Next we have Quentin Cunningham.

Good evening all.

One response I got attempted to flip the conversation into an attack on me, but in the interest of decorum, I will not be naming the person.

They demanded my solutions to issue separate from the concerns I raised.

This was the first acknowledgement I have ever received from them.

Even when I emailed about an information leak that affected 249 Fort Smith residents.

I will answer that demand here, so the public and the voters can hear them.

First, on the drain on resources comment.

Instead of bickering about who deserves emergency services, why don't we try partnership?

We should work directly with our police department and our shelters to establish a dedicated beat liaison as he requested last week.

If we can't do it 24 hours, why not peak hours?

This would provide on site de escalation, faster response for legitimate needs, help clear up the wild conspiracy theories that are still circulating, and free up our patrol officers.

It's a practical targeted solution that supports both our shelters and our first responders.

With the proper resource allocation and shuffling, little to no extra money is going to be spent.

Second, I uh would like to ask the board, Andre specifically, um have you followed up with Dr.

Reemer on his proposal?

Yes, sir, I did.

I had a conversation with Dr.

Remer and a citizen.

Um I did call back with Dr.

Breamer and the citizen both.

They have not had interaction meeting yet.

Okay.

Okay.

I uh I spoke to him today.

Umestly, I feel his proposal is very very reasonable.

Um it'll address rising veterinary costs in Fort Smith.

When we spoke today, he gave me quite a few horror stories about citizens who couldn't pay to help their animals and had to either euthanize them or he had to try and help them as best he can.

Um we should explore his idea further.

Small proactive steps like that, along with our incredibly effective and helpful voucher programs, it benefits everybody in the long run.

An ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure.

Finally, we must address our the root causes of our homeless crisis.

Gentrification and predatory real estate practices are driving up housing costs and pushing more people out of their homes.

I talk to citizens daily about this issue.

There was a gentleman who works about a block away from my house.

I asked him if he would sign my petition and the government change petition, and he told me he just recently moved out.

He's now in Pacola.

That's a large issue we're going to continue facing, so I recommend we conduct a study on targeted interventions, stronger code enforcement against slum lords, incentives for affordable housing development, partnerships to preserve naturally occurring affordable units, and options such as inclusionary zoning and community land trusts.

We could also implement a similar plan to help our small businesses with community land trusts.

Keep them from struggling and being driven out of town like Vinny's Pies.

Now, for another part of that email, crimes should be enforced vigorously regardless of whether the perpetrator is housed or unhoused.

It always deserves full accountability.

At the same time, these crimes occur in our community regardless of the victims' perceived perceived home homelessness.

The solution isn't pitting groups against each other through thinly veiled holier than now rhetoric.

It's consistent enforcement paired with prevention and treatment programs that actually help our citizens.

One criticism they levied at me at that email was leadership requires more than criticism.

They're right.

But you know what else it needs?

Engagement.

And they've consistently failed on that part.

I will always remain available to assist with research and implementation despite any disagreements we may or may not have.

Issues aren't solved with partisan classist or uninformed rhetoric.

Let's move to collaborative evidence-based action that serves all of Fort Smith.

Once again, I will supply the board with packets that detail my reposals and correct some misinformation from the study session.

Thank you.

Next we have Jason Skarbitz.

Thank you for inviting me in again.

And I thought it was quite good.

Firstly, I'm with you, Neil, on the cemetery's issue.

Is our spending in this city is out of control in many ways.

However, I also sympathize with the and understand the thought process and viewpoint of those commenters that believe this is more than just a monetary issue.

Because as they've noted, many City of Fort Smith residents are definitely personally invested in this whole situation.

What I don't get is why it's seeming it's seemingly the only solution that most of the board seems to latch on to have the city of Fort Smith, Arkansas take over things that they have no business doing.

Things are almost always handled better by and through the private sector and private investments.

Just a few examples.

Unkept, unmaintained cemeteries, a failing convention center, a failing water park with outrageous expenses and expenditures, city-owned and vacant properties that are nothing more than a drain on our resources and system.

Need I go on.

Now, on to the tonight's meeting.

I, for one, am vehemently opposed to any more tinkering with the public forum.

And frankly, because transparency with and trust in our board of directors is at an all-time low.

I personally believe that Kevin Settle and Jared Rego, among others, I'm speaking to the board.

Stop interrupting me.

Point of order.

And others are pushing this agenda item because they know good and well that there are much fewer attendees at the study session meetings.

And thus they won't have to be subjected to listening to we the people any more than absolutely necessary.

Also, I'm fairly certain and convinced that they don't want to be bothered to have to listen to us before they're fixing to vote on a controversial topic and item, which seems to be more and more common these days, by the way.

And they know that they're going to catch flack and be ripped a new one by the aforementioned we the people for their continued and impending shenanigans.

Now, as to the external audit business.

Did I overlook it?

No, I didn't think so either.

How are you all supposed to vote on or adopt something that you haven't even seen yet?

And is the apparent Parrot Island audit report that also hasn't been seen or released?

Part of that report that's supposed to be adopted?

Next, with this whole trail scenario, trail grant scenario, where we get nearly 2.5 million dollars of grant money to connect some existing trail infrastructure, but grant money, but only if and when we the citizens and city pony up that same amount.

Another 2.5 million.

Riddle me this.

How the hell does it take nearly five million dollars to construct less than two mile stretch of trail?

Not to mention how does that actually potentially or otherwise affect this whole Bass Reeves loop or lark or leap or whatever the hell you want to call it these days.

And who benefits from this latest potential boondoggle, given that it most likely involves the whole ACME brick property and future park or what have you.

Thanks again for your hard work on our behalf, Neil, along with that of Christina and George.

It's nice to see that we still have some actual representation in our city government.

Hopefully we'll have a damn sight more after the elections in November, shake out and take out the trash.

Thank you.

Next we have Shane McKinney.

Hello again.

So uh I want to talk about the idea of moving the forum to a study session.

Uh we were excited to move it to to give us five minutes and to put it before voting.

And a lot of us were excited about that because we had the opportunity to talk to you right before a vote happens, rather than having a weak delay between us talking to you about an issue and then a vote happening.

And I think most of you are on board with that.

If I recall, I think most of you voted for this and wanted to hear the citizen's voice until the citizen's voice wasn't what you wanted to hear anymore.

And more importantly, it started to take up a lot of time.

I'll admit, I mean an hour and a half, two hours of five-minute increments of people being very repetitive.

But sometimes we need to ask why are people being repetitive?

Why are people coming up here and saying the same thing?

And I think that reason is obvious.

They don't feel like they're heard.

When the people out here feel heard, one person coming up and saying it, maybe two is probably enough for everybody to feel like our voice is heard.

I don't think you have a time issue that needs to be fixed.

I think you have a listening to the will of the people issue that needs to be fixed.

And I think there's an ex I think there's an expectation that this is going to shrink and everybody's going to quit paying attention.

Um but I don't know if you've noticed, but it seems like it's consistent week after week that lots of people are here wanting to be heard.

And I think that there's a lot of hope here.

I think there's a lot of people that feel like they're going to be heard for the first time in a long time.

I even think is uh uh you can't spell shane without or shenanigans without Shane in there.

So he was talking about the shenanigans that are coming coming out.

Um I think despite all of that, I think his statement was hopeful.

He's looking forward to the coming elections.

And because he looks forward to feeling heard.

And I think if I were sitting on the board as you are, I would want the citizens to feel like they are heard already.

I think that's the idea of representation.

I think that's the thing that feels missing for so many of the people that are here.

And I think our forum before you vote, listening, even if it takes two hours, I think that's a great way for you, the board, to show that even if it's painful, even if it means we're staying up late, that you are willing to listen to what the people have to say, even if it's repetitive, even if it's uh maybe doesn't make full sense, you're willing to listen to us.

And I think that was a great gesture.

I think taking that away uh during a time when so many people are worried about being heard, whether it be from petitions or whether it be from statements before votes or from comments online or whatever it may be, taking that opportunity to talk to you away, I think would be just a tragic misrepresentation of the people.

Second thing I want to talk about.

And uh I think this is uh I think this is indicative of this problem further.

Um but Christina and uh George and myself and Joey were in in George's last week, and uh Joey Joey got a little animated as Joey does sometimes.

But I want to I want to talk about the difference of this transaction.

It's not to not to throw anything at Joey, he gets plenty thrown at him already.

But while ago somebody asked me about that and said, Shane, if you were there, why didn't you why didn't you try to uh rescue Christina from Joey?

I think it's the word.

You did come and get me.

So come get Joey.

And I came up and grabbed him by the arm and said, come on, you need to come.

And there was a lot more to that story.

But this is the thing, as he said that to me, he said, I'm really disappointed in you, Shane, because I think you listen and you didn't act during that time from what I saw online.

And the reason why he was disappointed was because he didn't think I was listening for a change, and he said, Normally we see you listening, um, and that caused me great disappointment.

I think most people here would be surprised to feel like some of you are listening to them.

Not surprised to think that you're not.

Um and it doesn't mean that we're always going to agree, no, but at least hearing and conversing and feeling heard out here to the people, I think will take care of a lot of the time constraints and a lot of the time problems.

Um if that makes sense.

So when the citizens out here are surprised to not feel heard from you, that's a sign that you're probably listening about as much as you need to be.

You're finally close to where you need to be.

And I hope you can set that as a metric and say, you know what?

I want the citizens to expect me to listen.

I want the citizens to feel heard with me.

And some of you are really good at this.

Thank you for those.

Next we have Janie Pugh.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Janie Pugh, Press Secretary for the Shane McKinney Revamp Fort Smith campaign.

We live here in a moment where the national political climate can feel heavy and incredibly divisive.

Too often we look at the news and assume that these challenges only exist in far-off places.

But recently, right here on the steps of our own local government, the reality of political threats and hostility hit close to home.

It served as a stark and sobering reminder that the safety, stability, and civic ideals that we hold dear are things that we can never take for granted.

Today we are standing together to confront an unacceptable reality.

The rising tide of political intimidation and threats of violence.

But more importantly, we are here to celebrate the resilience of our community, the strength of a dedicated campaign, and the swift justice delivered by the professionals who protect us.

Political threats and intimidation are at their core, a direct assault on the democratic process itself.

When disagreements escalate into hostility, fear, and harassment outside of public meetings, it doesn't just target individuals.

It threatens the right of every citizen to engage in civic life and to speak their mind freely.

When our team faced a moment of direct confrontation and threat, it was meant to silence us.

But a community and a campaign is not defined by the intimidation it faces.

It is defined by how it responds.

I want to recognize Shane McKinney for his steadfast leadership during this time.

Instead of backing down, instead of allowing fear to dictate the terms of this election, the campaign stood firm.

Shane towed transparency, accountability, and the rule of law.

By doing so, the campaign sent a clear message to the people of Fort Smith.

We will not be intimidated.

We will not stop showing up, and we will continue to advocate for the future of this city.

Ensuring that democracy can proceed without fear requires dedicated individuals who run toward danger to protect others.

That is why I want to extend my deepest, most sincere gratitude to the Fort Smith Police Department and Chief Baker.

When campaign staff faced an immediate threat to their safety, the response from our local officers and investigators was professional, decisive, and absolute.

They did not hesitate.

The Fort Smith Police Department acted swiftly to investigate the incident and ensure accountability.

Your dedication is the shield that holds regular citizens and allows them to participate in local government safely.

But the work of law enforcement is only the first vital step.

Lasting safety requires an unyielding commitment to justice inside the courtroom.

I want to express our profound thanks to our prosecuting attorney and their entire team.

Answering the call of justice in cases of political intimidation requires immense resolve.

The prosecutor's office stepped up seamlessly to reinforce a vital truth.

Our legal system works.

It protects its citizens, and there is absolutely no safe harbor for lawlessness or political violence in Fort Smith.

As I close, let us remember that keeping the peace is a shared responsibility.

We are incredibly fortunate to have a resilient campaign team, a stellar police department, and a dedicated prosecutor's office standing together.

Let us leave here today resolved to choose civil dialogue over hostility.

Let us reject the bitterness that fuels division, and let us continue to support the local heroes who defend our right to build a better, safer Fort Smith.

Thank you all so much.

Next, we have Jamichel Robinson.

Good to be with you tonight.

And I wanted to say thank you to Officer Newman for uh surviving his uh attack.

I think that was um very, very cool what you guys did here tonight.

Real shortly, uh, Fort Smith Police Department also saved my life too back in August of 2021 when a gentleman decided to drive me around and I sat in the back seat of my car with a gun.

And uh they found them that night.

And uh, but that's what he told the detective who said he wanted to know what it felt like to commit a homicide.

So I just want to thank the Fort Smith Police Department and uh Danny Baker and you guys for doing what you did.

I really appreciate that.

I just want to take a little bit uh different perspective tonight on some things.

I'll sent you guys some emails.

You might want to check your emails real quick.

I'd sent some emails to you, some documents.

I also have some documents I want to submit to the city clock in the attorney's office.

I mean the city attorney.

What I wanted to present is a uh city ordinance around parliamentary procedures and filing formal requests, and I know there's not a lot of knowledge about that, not a lot of education about that, right?

And the city doesn't particularly uh you know really put any role education out there based on this little book.

This little book is a pretty powerful book, and I see people that have uh not quite understand.

I've been observing it for a few weeks and just uh decided I wanted to see what is this procedural gap that's going on, you know.

And so uh what I did was I excuse me, I found some information.

I'd like to submit some of these documents to you.

I don't know if you guys able to check the emails as well.

But I come from this position of talking about this because I I've sat on several boards and I sat on the board at what uh Harvard House Gateway for two years as a board member, and so I understand this process and what's going on, and I've kind of wanted to come from this particular piece of it.

Um what I have here is a um formal request for him.

That's in accordance with you guys, parliamentary the two guys got guidelines and the parliamentary procedures that you guys see we're in.

And a lot of people come up here and they they're talking about the issues and stuff, and this is a way to really formalize it and track it.

And send you emails, I can ship that to you.

And so it's in it's and like I said, it's an accordance with you guys' guidelines and the parliamentary procedures.

I called NAP, was the NASA Association of Parliamentarians, and wanted to see how well this document was crafted and I put it together, and I spoke to these guys and they said that there's nothing on here that they can add or take away.

So I think I'm in the right area of what's going on here because I wanted to just kind of put on your educational lens for a little bit.

And look how generational this document can be, so that we the citizens can get formalized answers back to our questions.

And I know that I'm not trying I'm not trying to reinvent the will, I'm just trying to refine it just a little bit.

You know what I'm saying?

To give us a procedure so we can all track the process of how these things go.

And um, I'm not sure if you guys are able to see that in your emails.

Is that correct?

Good.

I just wanted to get some uh clarification on that.

But here's the current landscape of what it is when I Joe Elskin, she said something about education a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to you know tap into that a little bit.

But the current landscape is that municipalities widely enforced parliamentary rules from the from the diocese, and yet they provide no legislative mechanism to teach those rules to the public.

A perfect example of this, disconnect can be found right here in Arkansas.

The official rules of procedures for the city council of Cunway explicitly mandate that business businesses shall be conducted by Robert Rules of Order.

However, in the exact same section, the city officially could see that it's also understood that the formal parliamentary procedures is not well known by the public.

Cities uh are legally requiring the citizens to engage with the system that citizens themselves admit the citizens do not understand while entitled at the uh Arkansas Cooperative Extension Services, public-based pocket guides for parliamentary procedures.

These are merely eternal resources, not integrated local government.

Five minutes are up.

And thank you for your presentation.

Can I I got now ten seconds here?

I would like to submit these to the city's office.

It's already up.

Oh, it's it's counting up.

It's counting up.

My bad.

Can I admit these to the to the board, please?

Yes, sir.

Next we have next we have Joe Elskin.

Hi.

Gonna be quick.

I I um am very happy and and supportive that you are considering moving the citizens forum.

Uh I think it would improve the atmosphere for the business of the city of Fort Smith.

I think it's hard for you all to do your job if you have been through an hour of sometimes very rancorous uh comments.

Um if people need to be heard, they are best heard if they email.

And it's very easy to email the city board, and then you can put your entire reasoning and and it can be considered in the right atmosphere.

So that's my recommendation.

That's my support.

Um the next point is tourism is very, very important to our economy.

Um trails are are being funded in Northwest Arkansas, and I feel like the May Branch uh railroad trail, of course, would be covered by parks funding, so it's already set aside for parks, it can't go anywhere else.

It might as well go to to improve um that trail, create that trail.

And then finally, you know, the spraddling avenue extension runs through heavily wooded area, and um the treetop development, you know.

I asked them to please leave some trees, and they didn't.

It was all clear cut.

And so I'm I'm just hoping that you all would work with the um uh engineers and the construction company and ask them to leave some shade trees along that walkway.

All right, that's thank you very much for your work.

Next we have Joey McCutcheon.

Joey McCutcheon, Fort Smith.

I think it's great tonight to hear about data centers, the homeless.

We're gonna hear about flock cameras, which is a major constitutional issue in my opinion.

Uh we have some people talking about history tonight.

We have the housing authority folks here to comment tonight, I believe.

Uh, we've had comments about citizen uh the citizen comment.

We've heard about Officer Newman.

Uh so hey, this is great.

This is what citizen engagement is all about.

I want to give a quick update on where we are with the petitions.

Uh, today we were planning to submit them to Mayor McGill, who graciously said he could meet with us at 10 o'clock this morning.

Uh but last night we received a comment from a citizen uh who had concerns about some of the signatures she had collected and whether the process was being uh followed correctly.

Uh I love that, you know, and no criticism toward that citizen and all that's the way it should be.

Uh we held off because we want the process to be filled with integrity, and that's what we've done from day one, and that's what we're doing today.

We're investigating this, we're looking at this, and we want to make sure that it's done the right way.

So we're looking into it now, and if we need to report it to the ethics commission or anything else, we'll do that.

Understand that.

The truth is these petition drives must be handled carefully.

There are all kinds of reasons why sit it by why uh signatures are routinely thrown off, thrown out felonies, not registered, they live out of the city, uh all kinds of reasons.

And that's exactly why we've tried and continue to collect more signatures, and we're not stopping now.

The city, the county has a program that they can look at these things in literally almost no time at all, and the city should be uh no different.

But it's why we're collecting more signatures instead of rushing to turn them in.

We would have turned them in today, but but we had an issue.

Now, this has been a completely grassroots effort, a hundred percent uh by volunteers, many of them are who are here tonight, regular citizens volunteering their time.

Last weekend, several citizens stood out uh in hundred degree weather.

Uh and and we're gonna continue to get signatures because you know what, it's more than just getting signatures, it's about citizen engagement, and that's what we're seeing tonight.

But I'm going to be honest with everyone here, and I'm going to be candid with everyone here.

And I'm going to be candid with the folks who are listening tonight.

I talked to Sharon Brooks, who's our county clerk today.

We have 46,000 registered voters in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

We've collected now 3,851 signatures.

3,851 signatures.

That's disappointing to me, but it's but it's been a great volunteer effort, don't get me wrong.

But also 3,600 people passed a sales tax of $360 million of funds for over 30 years.

3,600 Fort Smith voters passed that.

We can do better than that as citizens.

And if these signatures get thrown out, then we need the people of Fort Smith to step up and replace them.

And that's what I'm asking people to do tonight because we're continuing to push for signatures just like we did in 100 degree weather.

So I'm asking Fort Smith residents to help.

You aren't voting to change the government.

You're just giving us the opportunity to vote in November.

The boards are trip repeatedly tried to take action, and the board in hole is decided not to do that.

The city clerk found out about this problem with the uh and city lawyer found out about this problem last week before I had an hour conversation with each of you about these this signature problem.

We probably should have known about that.

But so at some point it's pretty clear that the fate of this repres is is with us.

And I'm I am gonna commit tonight, the buck stops with me.

But we're gonna get this job done.

I'm challenging every registered voter to step up and sign it because we're gonna get the signatures one way or another in the right way and timely.

If I've got to fill my my great niece's wagon up and walk down Rogers Avenue, I'll do it because it's that important.

But it's important and we've got to get this done.

The people deserve that.

Uh so take five minutes, come by my office, tell your friends, tell your coworkers, tell your neighbors, and let's get let's get more and more signatures, and let's keep the citizen engagement up.

More citizen engagement, not less.

This is awesome to hear all the different perspectives, and uh I appreciate the board.

I appreciate you hearing us.

Next, we have Mitch Minick.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, members of the board, and city administration.

I wanted to directly address a few statements that were shared with the board at the July 7th regular board meeting regarding our organization, the Fort Smith Housing Authority, and the community development block grant program by Miss Crystal Cadelli.

For reference, Miss Cadelli's statements can be found at approximately the two-hour, 19-minute mark of the July 7th recording.

She stated that between 2022 to 2025, the city utilized CDBG funds of 481,000 for the Bailey Hill project for demolition and also sewer and water improvements.

She went on to say that she didn't like that the city giving such a large portion of these funds to one organization, and that she would rather see it go to our community rather than just one organization.

She also stated that the funds can be used in many different ways, which is true.

She ended her remarks by reiterating that she would rather see CDBG funding going to our community rather than just to one organization.

And I assume she meant the housing authority in her context.

These are not funds coming from the city's general budget.

The City of Fort Smith acts as an intermediary known as a participating jurisdiction or PJ to award these federal funds to qualifying organizations through a competitive process to improve low-income areas through improvements and/or services at the local level.

In 2022, the city awarded over 1.4 million dollars of funds to 14 separate applications from 11 unique organizations.

The Housing Authority received approximately 343,000 that year to assist with the demolition of the Bailey Hill Reservoir.

It was approximately 24% of the CDBG funding for that year.

In 23 and 24, the Housing Authority did not apply for CDBG funding.

However, the city collectively awarded over $1.6 million to 29 separate applications and $55 unique organizations in those two years.

In 2025, the city awarded $780,000 of CDBG dollars to 10 separate applications and 10 unique organizations.

The Housing Authority was one of those organizations that year, receiving about $139,000 for utility work for the Bailey Hill project.

In total, the 22 through 25 period, Ms.

Cadelli referenced, saw over $3.8 million of CDBG funding awarded for our community to anywhere from 10 to 15 unique organizations each year.

The Bailey Hill applications totaled approximately 13% of the total C EBG funding for those years.

Expanding the review to include the last year, which was 2020, that the Housing Authority received CDBG funding for something other than Bailey Hill, which was financial assistance to purchase a people mover van to help us transport Nelson Hall residents.

That review from 2020 to 2025 shows a total of $5.5 million of federal CDBG grant dollars being awarded to as many as 18 unique organizations over that time period.

That six-year period, the Housing Authority received approximately 9% of the CDBG dollars.

I'm happy to report that any claim that all of the federal CDBG grant dollars are going to one organization is unfounded.

The opposite is in fact true.

These federal grant dollars are being utilized by multiple agencies throughout our community to help our low-income community members from young infants to the elderly, from the unhoused to the housed.

In addition to the housing authority, being a recipient three times in the last six years.

Other agencies like the Children's Emergency Shelter, the Crisis Intervention Center, Community Rescue Mission, Riverview Hope Campus, Next Step Homeless Services, the Ark for the River Valley, Harbor House, the Guidance Center, Sebastian Retired Citizens Association, Antioch, the Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club, Girls Inc., Heart to Heart Pregnancy Center, Crawford Sebastian Community Development Council, and the Hamilton Center for Child Advocacy have all received funding for very for variety of needs.

I'd like to conclude by thanking all of the organizations that are carrying out these good works, partially funded by the federal CDBG grant dollars.

I'd like to thank the city's community development department for administering the program, the community development advisory committee, and the board of directors for reviewing, recommending, and approving projects for funding.

Finally, I'd like to say that the Housing Authority, we are proud of the services that we offer, and we welcome the opportunity to share our mission with board members and candidates for office.

Thank you for your time.

Next we have Darren Bircher.

Good evening, Darren Bercher with the Fort Smith Housing Authority.

Just wanted to give you a quick update.

There was some information requested at the uh June 23rd study session, and so wanted to give some a little more information on that to you guys.

As we previously shared, Forsgrin won the bid after a competitive sealed bidding process that the Housing Authority entered into a contract with them for the total project cost of a million dollars 754,231 dollars and fifty cents.

That work has begun at that project on June 29th, and the work scheduled to be completed in 2026 to the early 2027.

A breakdown of the streets and drainage work was requested at that June 23rd study session.

Our engineer Hawkins Weirs prepared that breakdown, which we shared with the city staff today, and so that can be included with the information and uh transmitted to the board.

The total schedule cost of that project was $1,273,310 and 50 cents.

The existing street improvements, the improvements related to the South S and 16th Street was $263,139.

The new street improvements related to the new infrastructure work was $799,077 and 50 cents, and then other project costs required work but not directly tied to the existing or new improvements was $211,094.

Director Settle inquired about the possibility of attaching a clawback provision to those funds attributed to the new improvements, and we're open to such language being added to that funding agreement to that will have that before the board in August as deed restrictions for that project.

Approximately 23,000 would be associated with each lot for that subdivision.

Again, we've emailed that information to the city staff today, and we'll have that uh information shared to you guys for the the August meeting.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Next we have Chris Connelly.

Um good evening and thank you for the opportunity to uh speak tonight.

Um hadn't really planned on saying on this, but um since my wife was brought up, um, I'm just gonna say I'm not gonna speak for her, she doesn't need me to do that, but from my perspective, my only objection to the housing authority asking for the million dollars was where it was coming from, coming from the streets, bridges, and drainage fund.

That was my my personal objection.

What they get from C which all what the CBDG gives them, you know, I don't have any question about that.

That's seems like that's how that normally goes.

So that was my concern.

Um today was supposed to be the day petition signatures would be presented to the city to begin the process of certification right out of the gate.

We have procedural roadblocks being thrown up.

This merely highlights and validates the numerous pleas from citizens for the board to pass all the numerous obstacles and delays those who oppose this change of government will deploy this effort to deny the citizens an opportunity to decide the form of government we wish to be governed by will continue beyond the efforts of the four directors who have uh voted against allowing the people to uh to make this decision for for ourselves.

I still hope the signatures collected will are enough to override the veto from the previous mentioned directors.

Uh I also appreciate the previous uh citizen who brought up the um the issue around data centers.

Uh this this is a big issue, and cities do need to get ahead of that.

Um it seems like a lot of cities throughout the country uh wait until these things pop up and processes have already begun, and um you know deals have already been made with with cities, so I I appreciate her bringing that up.

I do hope the board um would have a study session to discuss what ordinances might you know be uh necessary to protect us from something like that, popping up popping up in our neighborhood here, and then along the same lines throughout the country there is uh a growing controversy around the flock surveillance systems.

That's another uh issue that I wish the city would uh respectfully requested the board to schedule a study session on so that we can be uh educated on that those systems, how they're utilized in our city, what happens to that data, and you know, the extent uh of those systems in our town.

I think Greenwood just went through a similar process with with their flock representatives.

Um so anyway, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Next we have Crystal Cadelli.

Good evening, board.

Um, I actually had not planned on speaking about the housing authority tonight, but I feel the need to um provide a little information.

Uh one, I think that it's interesting that um decorum, we are not allowed to mention specific board members' names, but I believe Mr.

Minick uh just mentioned mine multiple times.

Um so in October of 2012, uh the city uh did a quit claim deed for Bailey Hill to the housing authority.

And with that, they specifically stated that the city will bear no cost of removing the structure and preparing the site for development.

So the CDBG fund that we just allocated to them did just that.

We funded them the cost of cleaning up the property.

And for anybody that doesn't understand how CDBG works, is that yes, it does come from the federal government, which goes to the state, which the state allocates the city.

And the city gets to determine where those funds go.

So they could be utilized for low-income areas.

We could use them for water lines in low-income areas.

We could use them for drainage issues in low-income areas.

We could be helping the citizens that live in poverty areas with things that will impact their quality of life.

But instead, we gave it to the housing authority, which already gets in the upper thousands of voucher dollars from the government.

So I, you know, and then you look at the salaries of the housing authority and the top five leaders of the housing authority together roughly make up about $700,000 in salary.

To me, that's not serving the community.

So that's not really what I wanted to talk about tonight, but I thought that I needed to clear some things up.

What I really wanted to discuss is that I found out last week that within the last 90 days, we have had 2,072 residents water shut off or non-payment.

That's nearly 2800 households in three months.

Those are children, elderly, and families that are suffering.

Those numbers should be a wake-up call.

Families are struggling, yet we continue discussing non-essential development, such as parks, trails, and water slides.

Actually allocating money to private developments like two million dollars to an RV park.

These are projects that might be desirable, but are not more important than reliable water, sewer, drainage, streets, public safety, and affordability.

We cannot prioritize the appearance of progress while residents face rising utility bills, broken meters, water shutoffs, drainage problems, our aging transmission lines, our sewer infrastructure, and our police that aren't even able to properly help our city.

Fort Smith is trying to develop that we are already an entertainment destination, but we are not a Branson.

A trail or a park is not going to bring in millions of people and pay for itself.

We cannot simply be build it, and they will come.

Entertainment alone will not create a strong city.

A strong foundation attracts businesses.

Businesses create jobs, jobs attract people, people generate tax revenue, and a stronger tax space attracts restaurants, shopping, entertainment, private investment for all ages.

That's sustainable growth that's gonna work.

So thank you very much.

Have a good day.

Next we have Richard Morris.

But tonight I like to elicit sort of a reconciliation of a misunderstanding to demonstrate to ourselves and outside communities that we're not all crazy.

We can talk to each other.

So I like to uh address a misunderstanding between well, let's put it this way, about the definition of a word.

And that word is breakdown.

Now back in April 14th at a citizen forum, I shared some uh AI research I did about the conduct of board meetings.

And in that uh I referenced Kevin Settle's uh admonitions as fellow board members about you shouldn't throw pot shots at each other.

And I time that I gave a reference time of that meeting uh reference saying that was in response to Christina's breakdown.

Now I was referring to a breakdown in decorum.

Christina had her own definition, and things kind of went sideways after that over the next past couple of months after that meeting.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to invite Christina to clarify what she thought was meant by that word breakdown.

I think that would clear up a lot of things and de-escalate whatever might come.

So Christina, please.

Okay.

Um you finished with your comments.

No.

Again, it's not a question answer.

But you may continue.

Go ahead.

Oh, hold on.

Uh uh director a few moments ago responded to a question from someone here at the podium, right?

But they chose to.

She doesn't choose to speak.

You're not gonna respond to that?

She doesn't choose to speak.

Okay, well, that's characteristic.

Okay, so let me clarify what's going on here and why I wanted to present this opportunity for everybody to be civil.

If Christina misunderstood the connotations, all she had to do is look at the context, the context of the uh her statements.

And it was a lack of decorum.

It was a breakdown in decorum, breakdown of communication.

That's all it was.

I'm not gonna venture to read her mind.

I wanted to give it an opportunity here.

But her action was an overreaction.

And you know, about a month and a half went by after that.

Point of order.

Richard, if you would please address the board.

I'm looking, I'm scanning.

Yeah, I know you're gonna be.

You want my glasses?

I'm scanning.

I'm talking to everybody.

I'm just asking what you address you talking to a specific board member.

If you would just talk to the board.

Okay.

Thank you.

Give me some time back.

No.

So you you get 30 seconds back.

Give them 30 seconds.

Okay.

Okay, I'll jump right to it.

Okay.

Christina back channeled a threat to me that she would get her lawyer on me.

I'm paraphrasing.

If I continued to make any more additional false assertions.

I made no false assertion.

Now that was to chill.

That was to chill my free speech.

Okay.

This is all documented, it's public record.

I've done legal consultation.

So has uh Christina done legal consultation.

We're talking about a civil matter that she's implied.

City attorney to question about defamation.

She crossed the line right there.

That's a legal exaction.

She's using government resources for private matter.

So I wanted to clear this up nicely.

Everybody makes mistakes.

She's passionate.

Passionate has good and bad connotations.

So the cat side of the bag.

So you guys are gonna have to, you know, pay attention to each other and police yourselves before things really get out of hand.

And I resent you, Mayor, trying to shut me down because you give everybody else a free pass.

Too often.

Too often.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Kristen Kitchens.

Good evening, board.

Um mayor.

It's hard to follow follow normally after Mr.

Morris here.

You know, he's uh great public speaker, and um, you know, I get nervous up here, things like that.

But what I'd like to talk about is um I was aware that we have just received a million dollars for um Brownsville's money for whirlpool.

And um I would like to make sure that that money is um uh it forgot it in June 2026 from when understand from the EPA.

Um but what I'd like to make sure is that we um uh are able to take manage those funds and make sure that they're spent for that if that's what it's for.

Uh I was kind of confused because I saw that um I didn't think the city owned that, so I was a little tad bit confused on that um when I saw in the EPA stuff.

Now also I started looking at the NPDES permits uh within our city, and um I noticed that we do not have one for Parrot Island.

Um there was one for the Ben Garrett and Auto uh aquatic part, but there has not been one filed for um Parrot Island, and if we use a lot of chemicals and we buy a lot and we're gonna be doing an audit, I thought maybe we should audit off of the chemicals.

I didn't know if maybe that's why we were putting more slides in so we could have more chemicals for if we're sharing them with our water department.

I wasn't quite sure, but um I thought this is something we might need to look into.

And um also um uh Acme Brick does not have any uh stormwater permits or anything, and we have some company at least in the other side of it out of the I guess it'd be the side that the store act me brick stores on, and we have a contractor out there that's got a whole bunch of stuff stored out there, like garbage piles, and there's not any if there's not any stormwater permits, and we also have gas wells out there.

Um I was concerned about that as well.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Next we have Dan Williams.

Good evening, Mayor and board.

Um I appreciate what I've heard so far.

I appreciate uh the mentioning of the data centers by Wendy.

I do believe that if the board would take that seriously and start looking at it, there are things that we could begin to prepare for and dealing with that and keeping our citizens safe and looking at the challenges that come with that.

Um I also appreciate Jason bringing up uh Mr.

Neil Martin's discussion on the give me five.

Uh he if he wasn't famous enough, he was at the overdrinks last night and his name was mentioned 35 times, I think is what I counted.

So 74.

74 times came out to me.

And everybody was drinking every time his name was mentioned, is what I said.

Cabs got wealthy last night.

It was back to the college days for general.

So uh but uh but what I would do like to mention uh about uh Jason mentioned the cemeteries.

Um it'd be nice if we could really get someone else to manage those.

I believe we have too much.

And if not, I want to propose the city to look at something this board to potentially look at let's sell all of our excess properties, and then we can take care of the cemeteries, which is a responsible uh ability to know that we can tend to it in the right manner, uh, the way they deserve.

Uh I would appreciate that.

Um last week we heard about the trails.

Uh I believe it was about the trails we mentioned and uh the loop, and I heard uh Casey brought this up about the mentioning of the change of the names.

We couldn't change the name because it might mess up the grant.

And I don't know how true that is, but it threw a red flag up for me because uh back in October 22nd, 2024, when I was at the board meeting, there was a noise mitigation grant that we were in conjunction with the school system when we were gonna get, which was gonna be right roughly five million dollars.

That grant has been approved.

Uh and we got a 3.9 million dollar grant from the federal government.

Uh we didn't have to pay for it, thank goodness.

But the challenging thing is that is Cornell School and or schools are shutting down and they're they're re uh right sizing the school system, and part of that grant is going to Cornell Schools.

I'd like for the city board to look into several of the emails that Jeff Dingman had with our federal government and how to keep that grant, uh, even though that school was gonna shut down.

Uh, because it seemed like there was some negotiation there when I fooled it, and I went back and looked at all that, that I really believe has something to do almost like this name change thing.

If we change the name, we can't get the grant, or if we shut down a school and we get grant money, how can we keep it and can we put school kids in there for a period of time to keep the money?

I I don't know, it just seemed odd.

I'm not saying anything other than I need someone to look into it.

Can y'all do that for me?

Uh and so also on the five minutes for the study session, the five minutes for the study session.

Um it'd be nice to keep uh this that we have and add five minutes to the study session.

Because if y'all want to build trust with the community, y'all are gonna have to go the extra mile.

And you know, it's gonna require work, and we're trying we're here to help.

Uh I'm gonna tell you there's a lot of citizens here that have great ideas.

I talk to people every day, they have some profound ideas that can help you.

You just won't spend time, you'll listen to the people you want to listen to.

And so I believe it'd be great to just go ahead and double down and ask for five more, or let's do 10 minutes.

You know, I'm I'm gonna I plan on staying the rest of the meeting and being here with you guys.

Uh I've I've learned to love you.

Uh I really have.

Uh, in spite of some of y'all's uh thoughts, I really do.

I care for this city, and I believe there's some great things that we need to look into.

We got good problems.

Did you know that?

We have good problems today.

Good trouble.

Who said it over right there?

Good troubles.

And you know what?

It just takes time and energy to look into it, ask questions, and really it's gonna take all of us together to fix it.

And I'm amazed at how many people are coming out, and I believe more and more people will come out because people do love this city, and you know, I believe like Ray Baker used to say, life will be, even though it used to be, will be worth living in Fort Smith again.

Thank you.

Next we have Teresa Jones.

Good evening, board.

At the risk of being pushed to a study session to forum, uh I decided to speak tonight.

Um section three of the City of Fort Smith board best practices.

I'm sure uh you all are infinitely familiar with the code of ethics, and uh I don't know how if there is an issue of ethics on the board.

I don't know how it is addressed if uh if you if you um monitor each other or how that works, but in case you missed it on uh July the 7th, there was a vote for rezoning of property at 705 Xavier Street in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Um I posted just the information on Facebook the following day after that meeting, and I'm concerned with the fact that um one of our directors chose not to abstain from voting on a zoning matter uh near properties directly owned by immediate family, and uh I I just I don't know how this is addressed by the board.

If it it does it even matter, is it an issue?

Um it's very concerning to me.

And after being on social media and the comments and the uh reactions made by the post, it is deeply concerning to people in Fort Smith.

Um what it tells me that if you can't take care of the little things, then you can't take care of the big things, and it was uh being that July 7th was the night of uh the board to vote again to uh respect the request of the citizens to get the change of government put on the November election.

This uh member chose to abstain from that voting instead of representing his constituency, but chose to vote when it was directly when it directly uh affected potentially his livelihood, his family's livelihood, and uh things of that nature.

Any questions?

No?

Okay, thank you.

I figured thank you.

Next we have Lavon Morton.

Levon Morton, uh, I live in Ward Ford and Fort Smith.

I'm I want to speak briefly about the cemetery issue.

Um I hope there's a way that the city can find to contribute to the process of upkeep those cemeteries.

I would say that the group that is that has uh basically maintained that organization, got don't gotten donations from the public, and generated revenue has done an amazing job of reducing the shortfall that is there.

So the the need for city funding is much less than it would be otherwise.

Well I would add to that, I don't think I I think there are many problems with trying to transfer real estate that has that has a lien against it from one party to another.

I think there are so many issues there that it could never actually be done unless the bank released the lien ahead of time, and even then I don't think it's advisable for the city.

The the problem there is you're you're locking yourself into a long-term commitment.

And while I I believe that maintenance of the cemeteries is very important, you can't take that on forever.

I think you have to create a situation where you have a way to uh avoid it if you don't have the money.

If we have another 2009 problem, or if we have another flood or something like that, then you have to have a way to step away for a year.

The way you could do that was is with a lease, and you you do a one-year lease, renewable at the option of the city.

Now that brings in the question of in order to do a lease and pay for it, the city has to receive something of value in return.

And I would urge the city to sit down with the group that runs Fort Smith Cemeteries and try to work out some value the city can receive, and there are a variety of things that I can think of, and and I think there are people that have sent in information to the city that might be good ideas that need to be explored.

Um it's just worth the effort, but it's gonna take some effort.

It's not gonna fall out of the sky.

I've known some things recently where the city just didn't make any effort to do something important.

Now it eventually got turned around and fixed, but the city must make an effort on things like that.

And that means sitting down with people and really working hard to try to come up with something of value that benefits the city of Fort Smith legitimately, not something made up.

But the lease is the way that if you get to a year when you absolutely don't have any money, you can just say to the organization, look, we cannot fund this this year.

You know, we don't know about a year from now, but one year leases at a time.

It happens in business all the time.

So thank you for the time.

And last we have Michaela Gaffney.

Hi, everybody.

I wanted to mention King Solomon today in the Bible in the book of Psalms, the demon of sloth is mentioned 47 times.

It is not a coincidence to me that our area code is 4-7.

This is something that we deal with greatly in our in our city and and the area that we live in, is people that do not have stewardship and the will to drive something forward.

Since moving here, this city, and I before I continue, because this will be offensive to some, is I would like us to understand generalizations and nuances.

This is general as opposed to at large, and the nuance would be if it does not apply to you, then it would not pertain.

When we look at the city at large, I have noticed more often than not people that feel entitled, people that think that they deserve things that they have not worked for, people that want resources that they are not willing to gain.

And as somebody that really does believe in the small businesses in our community and the way that we drive forward infrastructure, we have to learn how to develop stewardship as a collective together in order in order to drive forward our city.

This is something that is lacking because of the lack of stewardship.

With that being said, we have very many issues with mental health.

Whatever is happening within a business, whatever is happening within a government, every single one of those things is directly correlated to an individual's problem.

I noticed this when I called a specific credit union, and I ran my diagnostic system through their through their union.

With that being said, uh last time I spoke, I mentioned that there was going to be an event that I was holding.

That is going to be this Friday at the hangout on the 24th at 630.

This is not just an event directly about mental health.

However, it is every single issue that we are facing currently within our government, within society, and et cetera, is directly involving leadership problems that people are struggling with in their own personal lives.

As much as I would love to handle the risks in our in our community, that is something that I am not currently able to do with a million different reasons.

So really, what this looks like is bringing people together.

And provide necessary information to provide the adequate resources for the people that need it.

So this is not only about mental health, but this is about the leaders in our society that are stewardess that are focused on driving a mission forward.

This time we'll go to the first item on the agenda.

Thank you, Mayor.

The first item this evening is an ordinance changing the citizens' forum from regular meetings to study sessions.

In April, the board passed an ordinance increasing the number of citizens' forums per month and placing them at the start of the board's two regular business meetings each month.

The board subsequently requested that an ordinance be presented, changing the citizens' forum to the start of each of the board's regularly scheduled study sessions, and that ordinance is presented for the board's consideration this evening.

With that introduction, I'll defer to the board's discussion.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, are there any citizens' comments on this item?

Yes, we have three individuals, the first being Joey McCutcheon, and each will have two minutes.

Thanks for having me.

On April 21st, we voted unanimously, the board voted unanimously to move the citizen comment to the beginning of every regular meeting.

There was a 4-3 vote on how much time.

So now we're flip-flopping.

But more importantly, you know, when we when we put things off, that's not good either.

Putting off uh how we're gonna pay for a 580 million dollar water uh infrastructure issue, uh that's not good.

So the the question becomes, Director Settle, uh why are we doing this now?

Are you saying that because the community or citizens uh you know they wanted that?

They didn't want to wait an hour and thirty-four minutes as it was tonight to hear uh comments to start the agenda.

That's a positive thing.

I mean, you know, had we rather have if Mr.

Morris uh uh talked about do we want a chaotic meeting?

Or I'll say do we want a nobody shows up meeting that we've been accustomed to the last three years, because I've been at virtually every meeting.

When we started off, when we started having these discussions, nobody was showing up.

Uh these aren't chaotic meetings.

The only chaos we had was when this fella uh threatened somebody outside of this, threatened me online, had a baseball bat, threatened me in a two meeting, the two meetings before stood right over me and threatened me.

And before the last meeting, I had a meeting with the police chief and and uh the prosecutor and a detective.

So I don't know how I don't know how this happened outside of this this building out here.

Thank you.

I can't understand that.

Because they were aware of he was coming.

Next we have Chris Cadelli.

Yeah, uh uh you know, this is kind of laughable.

Uh this this just y'all just changed this back in April.

Uh well, you're gonna put us in the basement next.

I mean, the re there's a reason why this is taking so long.

Uh you know, if you guys were running the city the way it should be run, you wouldn't have anybody here.

Uh as a concerned citizen, I oppose this ordinance and request it remains as adopted at the April 21st meeting.

Regular voting meetings have a higher attendance from directors and citizens alike.

This will likely force some folks who prioritize voting meetings due to scheduling conflicts and time limitations to have to attend a study session instead of the preferred voting meeting.

Contrary to the opinions of directors Settle and Rego, the most important segment of these meetings is when you hear from these folks, the the people you that you know that elected you and that you work for, these are the people that you need to hear from.

Um I would ask that uh the feedback and and and the opinions of citizens is the most important.

Um citizens may need more than two minutes allowed to speak on an agenda item during our voting meeting, and the citizens forum allows for that additional time.

We saw that tonight.

There were some folks that already talked about this during the five minutes and got another opportunity for two minutes to to further address the situation.

Uh so this is uh this is our direct way to express or withhold our consent for how you guys are running the city.

So I would ask with all due respect, keep it the way it is.

This you know, this is this is really pretty silly in my opinion.

Thank you.

Last we have Richard Morris, and this will be the last individual to speak on item one.

Um is that troublemakers here are trying to extend their social media presence and to these public meetings.

That's the elephant.

Okay.

Um city's been down his road before.

And uh if I'm not mistaken, uh they uh they had a moratorium for a while.

So I'd say we should just stop having these farms until after election day.

That's just my wild opinion.

But yeah, these these things are out of hand, and uh he's he's having a laugh at it.

He's got he's got a chance, gentlemen you and I go back.

Anyway, yeah, all right.

That's all I gotta say.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Uh at this time we need a motion to adopt the ordinance with suspension of the rules.

So move a suspension of the rules.

Second.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please read the ordinance.

In ordinance repealing and replacing section two-44 subsection B of the Fort Smith Municipal Code.

Okay, thank you.

This time, board comments.

Okay.

There are no comments, Madam Clerk.

Call the roll.

Directors Rego.

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Kemp.

Yes.

George Kittsavis?

No.

Christina Kitzavis.

Yes.

Settled?

Yes.

Martin.

Yes.

Motion passes six in favor and one opposed.

At this time, let's go to the emergency clause.

Need a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

Please call the roll.

Directors good.

Yes.

Kemp.

Yes.

George Kittsavis?

No.

Christina Kittsavis?

Yes.

Settled?

Yes.

Martin.

Yes.

Rego.

Yes.

Approved.

Six in favor and one opposed.

Go to item two.

Item two relates to the city's reversionary interest in property owned by the National State Council of the Boy Scouts of America at 1401 Old Greenwood Road.

Deputy City Administrator Maggie Rice will further discuss the Lord's options for this item.

Yes, sir.

The Natural State Council owns the property at 1401 Old Greenwood Road.

The vacant land was conveyed to the West Ark Area Council in 1962 by the Fort Smith Board of Commissioners.

This deed included a reversionary clause requiring the land revert to the city should it cease to be used for scouting purposes.

Over time, the need for scouting offices has declined, and the Fort Smith office is no longer needed in its current configuration.

Mr.

Jack Butts, attorney for the Natural State Council has requested the reversionary clause be clarified or removed in its entirety.

Included for your considerations are three resolutions.

Item A removes the reversionary clause releasing the city's interest.

Item B allows the council to lease the entirety of the building for a non-scouting purpose.

And item C removes the reversionary clause subject to the enclosed agreement with the following inclusions.

One that the city received first ride refusal should the property ever be listed for sale, and should the governing body choose to purchase the property, the price should be less the current market value of the land.

Two, the natural state council reimbursed the current market value of the land should the property be sold to a buyer other than the city.

And then a fourth option is to take no action, leaving the reversionary clause in place.

The property was rezoned in January 2026 to transitional, allowing for office-related land uses.

Additionally, it shares a parking lot with Girls Inc.

and is within a large recreational corridor spanning from Rogers Avenue to Country Club Avenue.

I'll be happy to answer any questions if you have any.

Okay, thank you, Ms.

Rice.

Uh are there any citizens' comments, Madam Clerk?

Uh we have Shannon Richardson to answer questions, and then also Jack Butt is available.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh at this time we will entertain a motion to adopt the resolution resolution 2A, 2B, and 2C.

Mayor.

R.

I'm sorry.

2A to B R 2C.

Mayor, I'll make a motion to adopt uh item 2A.

Okay.

You need a second.

I'll second.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I still have a question.

So we'll get to your question.

Okay.

We do have a motion and a second.

This time we'll have comments from the board.

You want to ask first.

Uh Director Kemp.

Thank you, Mayor.

Ms.

Rice, has there been any conversation with Girls Inc.

looking to have interest in this property?

I mean, it's right there beside them.

I mean, if if one nonprofits needing not needing that space, and there's another one that seems to be, you know, needing progress.

I mean, is there any conversation there?

I have not had any conversations with Girls Inc.

I will say that the city owns the Girls Inc.

building.

So I don't know that the Girls Inc.

would be interested in purchasing this property.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions?

Direct settlement?

Yes.

Maggie, if you don't mind, I'm going to address Maggie if you don't mind.

So A removes the reversion clause completely, correct?

Yes, sir.

So then at that point, the Boy Scouts would own it.

It releases the city's interest in.

Okay.

So my question becomes as you just alluded to, this is a park corridor, right?

You got Kelly Fields, sorry, sorry about that, folks.

Kelly Fields, Hunts Park, the Girls Club.

Creek Moore and the Nature Center.

So what happens if we do revert this and they decide to use something that's not conducive of that corridor?

Is there anything that we can I mean, that's what I'm trying to get to is how do we make sure that stays within the bounds of the corridor that's already there?

Well, at present, the zone this board approved a zoning in January of this year for to make it transitional, which is office essentially professional office type uses.

Okay.

So that would be they would be limited by zoning.

Um but other than that, that's pretty much the limitation on the property should the board choose to release the city's interest.

And item three puts in some reversion clause that allows us to buy it back in the future.

But right now, if we did nothing.

If if they if they did anything, we just give it back to us, right?

If they if we did nothing and we didn't proof one of these items, what would happen?

Uh the property would revert back to the city.

So doing nothing, the property reverts back to the city.

Correct.

Upon what reason?

Is it because they stopped scouting or is it because they're done with the building?

Yeah, if it's no longer used for scouting purposes.

So this is similar to what boasts of the boast building were reverted back to the city?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay, I'm I'm good for questions.

I'll let y'all talk some more.

Mayor.

Okay.

Uh we'll go direct to Savers and then Director Ego.

Maggie, what's the appraisal on this property?

We don't have an appraisal on the property.

I don't have a current appraisal on the property.

I mean, no one knows what it's worth.

Pardon?

Nobody knows the value of the property?

It's owned by the Boy Scouts.

They might know.

The the Miss Richardson and Mr.

Butts are here on behalf of the National State Council.

We have not raised it.

Because we do not have an intention of selling it.

I think that's what we need to clarify to everybody.

The intention is not to get the reversionary clause removed to immediately sell it and have another opportunity.

The intention is actually to become more flexible.

So if we do lease it to an organization which would be an organization that fits our Scout Oath and Law, of course.

Um the money would be invested right back here to support the kids of Fort Smith so that dollars are not the barrier between a kid and entering the program.

So we don't have a current intention to sell it, which is why we haven't had it appraised.

So item C I item C gives us first right of refusal, correct?

If it if it does come for sale.

Yes.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Director Ego.

Uh I just had a question in the statement.

Uh Mr.

Butts, it says in the memo, uh, and you're the attorney for the Natural State Council that you have requested the reversionary clause be clarified or removed in its entirety.

Could you just um explain to us a little bit why you've made that request?

Yes, and and frankly, I'm a volunteer member of the board, and because I'm an attorney, I'm volunteering to help this issue too, because I do some zoning and stuff up in Fadville where I live.

But uh we started out looking at this strategically.

Uh can we lease some of this building out to make some money if we don't need all the offices?

And the Fort Smith response and the planning office has been incredibly helpful to us is no, you can't use this building for anything except Boy Scouts because that's all it's zoned for, and so we went through the process of getting it rezoned so we could use it for uh uh business, attorney's offices, titles, whatever.

But but even though it's now rezoned for those purposes, the reverter clause says if it's used for anything other than Boy Scouts, it goes back to the City of Fort Smith.

And so even if we lease one office out, theoretically, Fort Smith could say we want it back.

So we have said we would like the reversion clause to be moved.

We paid for the building in in uh 1960 something, and we've been good corporate citizens and that supported Boy Scouts.

We said we've kind of shouldered our load in that.

Can you just release the reverter?

And so going forward, we may continue to use the building, we may at least part it up to tenants.

We have no present intention, but theoretically we could sell it to a third party who would put offices in there.

If if the board doesn't like the notion that they're completely releasing the building, an alternative would be let us rent it to anybody we want to that as long as with within the zoning, and actually the city came up with the third alternative to say, well, we could let you lease it to whoever you want to, but if you do sell it, we like to get our money back.

You keep the value of the improvements, we get our money back.

So those are the options on the table.

Frankly, we would prefer it that the reverter be released.

One way or the other, this will be used for scouts because either the offices will be filled with scouting offices, some are all will be leased and the money will be used for scouting, or if we sold the building, it would still be zoned for this supply commercial, and all that money would be used for scouts somewhere here in this area.

But that would give us the most flexibility, would be the motion, which is the resolution uh removing the reversion clause.

But the city had proposed alternatives in case the board said, well, we're uncomfortable completely releasing the reversion.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, and thank you for that additional context, and and uh it supports why I made the resolution or the motion for resolution two A.

I think we talk frequently uh and hear frequently from citizens about um you know the amount of property we own, are we using property that we own, uh is there going to be a future use, what's the cost of ownership, etc., etc.

And we actually have a property that we have an ownership uh interest in that has a tenant that is interested in more flexibility and is interested in in having that responsibility of this property be removed from the city entirely, uh and I think that's not always a case that comes along, and it's a uh very well established, reputable organization.

Uh they've made the request, and that's why I uh supported and made the motion for 2A, and I would encourage us to uh vote for item two A.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

Any other questions?

Direct Settle, were you in the queue?

He kind of answered my what I was gonna ask before.

My question is what do you have somebody ready to lease that property uh right now that is I mean, obviously we rezoned it so it's gonna fit in the zoning.

So do you have some?

No, our uh without the authority to lease it, we we haven't made any effort or any deals at all.

And and we uh I we're just trying to get kind of a uh a green light to proceed either as the unfettered owner or if the city wants to continue some restrictions, understand what those are so going forward we can make the best strategic use of the building for the scouting program.

Okay, thank you very much.

Maggie, item B is pretty much they can fall the lease uh with the with the uh zoning, but we have the uh reverter clause, correct?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Director Neil Martin.

Ms.

Richardson, you said that um you would potentially lease it out or sell it to entities that have kind of the uh I don't remember the exact words you said, but are same mindset mission as the scouts.

What like what what what what type of entities are we talking about?

So again, I want to reiterate we have no intention of selling the building.

I know that's a concern.

We have no intention of selling the building.

We are a youth-serving organization that follows very strictly the scout oath and law.

So if you are not familiar with the scout oath and law, it goes a scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, right?

They would have to fit within those means to even lease the building out with us.

Because our intention is still to retain some business in that office to support the scouts of Fort Smith, but if we can lease out a portion of it and then invest those dollars directly into the youth of Fort Smith, that is what we want to do.

So the the those categories uh are are good, they're fairly broad.

It doesn't necessarily mean a Boy Scout entity or you may be a direct um entity that works with scouts today, it could be something else.

It could be the Dolly Parton lending library, it could be another youth serving organization.

It could, but it would we're not going to neighbor in our own building with somebody who is not connected to what we're doing.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Uh Director Good.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um Ms.

Richardson and Mr.

Attorney Butts wanted to thank you both for being here.

Thank you for the clarification.

And actually making the stance on what your intention is and what it is not.

And attorney butts also thank you for your uh compliment uh on our planning uh department.

I have to agree with you.

We think they're pretty amazing.

Thank you.

Director Rigo.

I'll just say not to belabor the point.

If this was being if a shoe was on a slightly different foot, if this was being approached a different way, and it was the scouts coming to us saying, hey, city, we'd sure like you to take over and have an ownership responsibility in this building.

None of us, I don't think, or certainly not a majority of us would be inclined necessarily to support that.

This is a situation where there's a responsible tenant who's who's giving us an opportunity to divest of a responsibility and uh and a um obligation during a time where um we recognize that there are resources that are uh stretched in that way.

Okay.

Any other comments from the board?

There's been a motion to uh adopt a 2A and 2B.

No, sir, just two A.

It's 2A, I'm sorry.

2A, okay.

Was there a second?

Okay.

Madam Clerk, call the roll.

Directors Kemp.

Yes.

George Kitzavis?

No.

I'm sorry?

No.

Christina Kitzavis, yes.

Settle?

Yes.

Martin?

Yes.

Rego?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Motion passes, six in favor and one opposed.

Item three.

Item three is an ordinance amending the Fort Smith Municipal Code regarding the use of aluminum wiring.

The proposed amendment reduces the minimum size of aluminum wiring inside a building.

Uh we're per where aluminum wiring is permitted by the state and national electrical codes.

The city's building official Jesse Bennett will further introduce this item and address questions from the board.

Thank you.

Good evening, Jesse Bennett, Director of Building Services.

Uh as stated, this is an amendment to Section 656 153 wire methods number six.

This change removes the minimum size of aluminum conductor inside of a building from a full rot to allow the minimum of a one-ought wire were permitted by the National and Arkansas Electrical Codes.

Myself and uh Master Electrician, City Electrical Inspector Sean O'Kelly are here to answer questions.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Any citizens' comments, Madam Clerk.

Uh yes, only one, Shane McKinney, which will have two minutes.

So when we create a ordinance, we create inspection obligations to enforce.

And uh whenever we're creating the opportunity for people to exercise power over us, I think it's always good to ask uh what are the reasons and what's going on.

So I am very hesitant to give authority to others easily.

Anybody that follows me knows that uh I'm not a big fan of the way we conduct building inspections and property in the city of Fort Smith, and I think it holds a lot of things back.

That said, we also have a lot of fires in houses, um, and some of those can be prevented by common sense approaches.

Um, you know, making sure that our wire is is capable.

Um I think this is a pretty good item of responsibility, and there's a reason the code uh needs needs this.

Um I would just ask us to uh make sure this doesn't become a burden on grandma's house that maybe has these things issuing if grandma needs to uh do a renovation on her house, is she no longer going to be able to do so because the wiring doesn't match this, and now we're gonna require her to so now she lives in a home that maybe has mold or has other problems.

Sometimes the unintended consequences of what we're doing can create additional or can maintain an additional problem.

So let me give you an example.

Grandma has a house, it's got a roof leak, it's got some problems, it's got some mold.

She needs to take care of this.

She has enough money to take care of that.

But when she goes to take care of the mold problem, we discover we have a wiring issue that needs to be addressed.

And so now she does not have the budget.

So does she live in the house with mold or does she live in the house with the potential?

I just want you guys to be aware there's there's more to this than yes, is this a fire hazard or no, this isn't.

It has direct implications on the people that we love in our community, our family members, um, some of those that are least fortunate.

Uh, we're trying to deal with um homelessness is obviously a big problem.

And every time we pass a code, we potentially set a barrier between a person being able to live in a house that could be available.

Okay.

Thank you.

Just time we entertain a motion to adopt the ordinance with suspension of the rules.

So move.

Second.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please read the order.

In ordinance amending section 6-153 of the Fort Smith Municipal Code.

Any board comments.

Director Good.

Yeah, I'll just make a comment.

Um to Mr.

McKinney.

I actually agree with you don't have to come up, but I was just wanting to say I agree with your comment about unexpected consequences.

And the decisions we make affecting uh homeowners, uh, primarily elderly.

You know, I've run into that many times because codes do change.

But what I've also found out is that the City of Fort Smith has programs to help, like our home program to help those individuals that may or may not be able to afford these upgrades.

So but I definitely can appreciate what you're saying, and we do care about the elderly, but you know, codes will be codes, and we have to go with what's current.

Thank you.

Director Neil Moore.

So I appreciate uh what Mr.

McKinney said.

I I think we've got some builders in the back as well.

Would you guys be willing to speak on this at all?

I I just I'd I'd like your opinion, if you wouldn't mind.

Sorry to call you up uh get you on the spot.

I know that's never fun.

But I'd love to I'd love to get your point of view as well.

If you wouldn't mind to introduce yourself, sir.

I'm Tracy Hoop Tracy Hooper with JF Sofly here in Fort Smith.

We use the aluminum wire service entrance wire all over every every city anywhere, but in Fort Smith.

Every every other city allows it.

Do they have no problems?

We've got countless jobs over the years that we've had no trouble.

Even the even the aluminum the wire that comes into the meter packs on the apartments and all that stuff, it's aluminum.

Aluminum wire has been used for years, and it's new aluminum, is it's it's not new, it's been around for a while.

It's a 8,000 alloy.

It's not just straight aluminum, it's a lot a lot better product, it's built as it's it's all code in the National Electric Code that it's allowable, it's used everywhere, but here in Fort Smith.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'd be glad to present y'all jobs where it's being used right now.

It's been used, it was actually used one time here in Fort Smith about 2014 on the reserve at Chaffee Crossing apartments.

They got it overturned and let it be let it used on that project.

There's been no fires, there's been no issues.

It's been it was used on a like 112 units, and there's been zero issues at all.

If if this were if this were enacted.

Huh?

If this were enacted, if we moved forward with this, um are you saying this would be better for a builder versus building something here in Fort Smith?

Well, let me back up.

Somebody building something else.

I've seen several places that did that were coming gonna come to Fort Smith and do projects, and they didn't because the cost it was higher to do it, build it in Fort Smith than it was anywhere else in the whole country.

So they scrapped and left and went and built it somewhere else.

Okay.

I've seen that happen before.

I don't think y'all want that.

Okay.

Thanks, sir.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Director Settle.

I just got a quick question.

Uh Director George, sir, sir.

Cost cost-wise, is it is it cheaper this way or not?

It's almost three times as expensive to do use the copper on the smaller feeders like for a hundred amp size services.

Versus the aluminum?

Yes.

So this is cheaper.

It's yes.

Yes, it's like a lot of it.

It's like $11 a foot compared to $3 a foot.

Okay.

Thank you.

And when you're talking about each unit on the part on a like apartment deal, you're talking that there's like usually about a hundred foot per apartment.

And yet when you take that times the number of units, it's pretty costly.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other comments from the board?

Okay.

Director Kent.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to make sure I understand the sentiment.

So he is speaking in favor of this.

Okay.

Okay.

I want to make sure that I was clear.

Thank you.

Okay.

There are no further comments.

Uh Madam Kurt, call the roll.

Directors George Kittsavis?

Yes.

Christina Kittsavis, yes.

Settled.

Yes.

Martin?

Yes.

Rego?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Kemp.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Seven in favor and zero opposed.

Motion to adopt the emergency clause.

So move.

Second.

Thank you.

Please call the roll.

Directors Christina Kit Savis.

Yes.

Settled.

Yes.

Martin.

Yes.

Rego.

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Kemp?

Yes.

George Gitavage.

Yes.

It's approved.

Seven in favor and zero opposed.

Number four.

Item four is a resolution accepting the 2025 annual comprehensive financial report.

Ms.

Dina Enfield, the chair of the city's audit advisory committee is here this evening to present the 2025 audit.

And either Miss Infield or Chief Financial Officer Andy Richards can address any further questions the board may have.

Ms.

Infield.

There she goes.

Hi.

Thank you for having me.

I'm Dina Infield.

I'm a citizen member of the audit advisory committee and the current chair.

And I would like to thank all the board members and citizens that serve on that committee.

We do have the annual comprehensive financial report, the ACFR, our ACFAR for the city for the year ended December 31st, 2025.

I'm just going to go through some highlights of the process and the report and any questions or information, feel free to ask.

Okay.

Yes, Josh is Josh is getting that up.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

So the audit of the ACFAR is performed by Forbus Mazars.

They have met with the audit committee and we're not we were notified that the city should receive an unmodified or clean opinion on the audit, that it is presented fairly in all material respects in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

We would like this resolution that the ACR be accepted so that as soon as the final approval is received from the auditors, the APR and their report can be dated and issued in order to meet reporting compliance requirements.

The ACFAR is prepared by our Chief Financial Officer Andy Richards, and the report does include a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting for the 2024 ACFAR that was issued by the government finance officers association.

So the process is that for VIS Mazars performs the audit procedures, which includes their review of their ACFAR, and once final, their audit report with signature will be added and embedded in the ACFAR.

As I mentioned, Andy prepares this, drafts are issued, and the first drafts were issued earlier in June to begin reviewing this.

The updated draft was discussed in the audit committee meeting on July 9th of 2026 with the auditors present to have questions asked by the audit committee and management of over the report.

So I do have in the report.

Pages 23 through 33.

And I will just go over some highlights of that to discuss for the year.

This is kind of a summarization of the full report that goes through items that management believes are important for the year.

On page 26 of that, the total net unrestricted position of the city at the end of 25 is 49.1 million, which includes the governmental and business type activities of the city.

And the net position of the governmental activities is a deficit of 20.4 million.

One thing on that number to make sure that we understand is that deficit in the governmental activities is because the that number includes the fully accrued pension obligations of the city, which at the end of December were 65.2 million.

That's not what's going to be due within the next year, but that is the amount that is fully is our full accrual for under our pension obligations based on the actuarial amounts.

So that is one thing.

If that wasn't 65 million, wasn't in there, then that is the that would not be in a deficit position.

Also discussed in here is that that page on page 26 compares the prior year uh deficit to the current year, and that number last year was a deficit of 9.4.

This year it's 20.4, which is a decrease.

Um, but there were some significant general funds outlays, uh, capital outlays this year that were planned and were known, and that also does include the building purchase in 25 of 4 million dollars.

Pages 32 of the uh management discussion analysis does have the detail of the major capital asset events that occurred during the year, and then also the notes of the financial statements will have significant detail.

Uh note four specifically about the capital expenditures during the year.

Another thing to mention in the year is that bond proceeds were issued, the sales tax bonds of 94.3 million.

Those were issued at the very end of September 25 that would be used to fund the consent recree work because it being late in the year when those were issued.

A lot of that money was not able to be spent in 25, so our cash at the end of the year and also our long-term liabilities were increased from where they typically are.

Note seven in the financial statements does include detail of all of the debt that would be outstanding at the end of the year.

What we just talked about was specifically related to the unrestricted general fund.

But the overall net position for the city during the year increased by 38.4 million dollars from the prior year.

The governmental activities included an increase of 8.1 million, and the business type activities included an increase of 30.3 million.

In that statement of overall net position, there are transfers shown of 23.1 million from the which basically from the governmental funds, which is the sales tax construction fund.

That then is transferred over to the water and sewer fund for the consent decree work that was did occur.

Those are not considered cash transfers, but transfers of the work that was performed.

And that is where we have the balance sheet for the governmental funds, and this is a you know the related to the general fund.

At the end of the year, the general fund had a positive unassigned balance of $19 million, which is up from $12 million in the prior year.

So that number has increased.

That number does not include our pension liability, so that's why that you know is different from the number I mentioned before.

I think that that is something that you know I know is watched closely, has improved.

Still, we're not, you know, we're only at 29% of our general fund expenditure, so that's something that would continue to be what to be watched.

The other items in talking through just the report in general, wanted to mention a few significant things that I haven't mentioned yet.

There is a pretty large contingency footnote on page 115 of the draft report, which includes the current status of the Department of Justice and the EPA modifications.

That modification agreement was published in the Federal Register on May 19th of 2026 with a 30-day comment period, and then after that comment period, the modification was filed with the court on July 6th and is awaiting the court to issue a ruling to formalize the modification.

Is in these the required supplementary information.

There is a large statistical section that gives a lot of information from year to year and over the last 10-year period.

Page 158 of the statistical section covers the net position by component from the last 10 years, so it's comparing 2016 to 2025 and goes through the net position both by governmental activities, our business type activities, and then the primary government.

But on the primary government overall, our total net position unrestricted is 49 million at the end of 2025, which at the in 2026 was a negative deficit of almost 26 million.

So that is a large turnaround over a 10-year period in the primary government net position.

Business type activities, that unrestricted uh balance has gone up.

It was 69 million, which is about a $56 million increase over the 10-year period, and then the governmental activities, as I mentioned, that is a deficit of 20 million, but in 2016, that was a deficit of 38 million.

But in 2016, that was a deficit of 38 million.

So although it's still a deficit, that's the number that does include the pension obligations, and that has been gotten better by about $18 million overall.

The last item in the statistical section, page $173, goes over the revenue bond debt service coverage.

That's something that is watched closely on the bonds and what our coverage ratio is.

At the end of 2025, our ratio was back up to 148 percent.

110 percent is the minimum that is required.

We were under that in 23.

We were barely over it in 24 at 114 percent, and that has now gone up to 148 percent with some of the changes made on the funding during the year.

The um I last time I wanted to mention related to specifically the audit.

As part of the audit, the auditors also perform audits under a governmental and uniform compliance standards.

Um during 2025, there were $6.3 million in federal awards expended.

Um the auditors tested the transit program, which was the major program that was tested in 2025, which is about two and a half million of that 6.3.

There were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies that were noted by the auditors, and they anticipate giving an unmodified opinion on compliance with major federal award programs, and the city also was considered over low-risk audit under the federal uh auditing standards.

Those were the items that I had that I wanted to point out to the board.

Andy is here as well if there are questions, specific questions that you would like us to address.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Um at this time we will go to are there any citizens' comments, Madam Clerk?

None indicating.

Okay, we need a motion to adopt some of the second, thank you.

This time we'll go to uh comments from the board director Neil Martin.

I think I saw you hand.

Yeah, Ms.

Sinfield, um if you wouldn't mind, what what's your profession?

I'm a CPA.

Your CPA.

Um do you um how long have you been on audit committee?

Um I believe I've been on the audit committee 15 years, don't quote me on that.

I've not been chair, I've been chair for about a year and a half now.

Okay, you're doing a great job, by the way.

Thank you.

Um when when they say, and I know you kind of mentioned it, but when they when they say a clean unmodified opinion, what is that what does that mean in layman's terms?

Okay, so an unmodified opinion is the highest level of opinion that you can issue.

It means that there are no you're they're not modifying the opinion.

So in the alternative, there's a qualified opinion, meaning we have audited it, but we found certain things that we cannot give a clean opinion on, so we are mod we're qualifying our opinion for those things.

So you can't go any higher than an unmodified a clean opinion?

Correct.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

So I want to make sure that the folks are aware of that.

Um one of the things, uh, because I'm on the audit committee, and I want just the folks in the in the audience to know that.

I'm on the audit committee, so I was a part of these discussions where we got this um uh we got the draft audit.

Uh, one of the things that four of us Mazar said, and I wrote it down because I wanted to share it with everybody, um, said that we are in good a shape as as we have been in a long time financially, or or in terms of the audit, I guess.

Um they did say, and this is interesting that it is more complicated because we have water and sewer.

Like Fayetteville, they have there's a beaver water district that supports them that they don't have, so that it's not as complicated to do their their particular audit.

Um I think the same thing with Little Rock.

I think there's they have a central route.

So we're unique, it's it's it's it's a lot of chat uh challenges related to that.

Um thing I will say, and I don't know if Andy heard this, but he I think he was out of the room at the time because we we we ask internal staff to leave so we can talk to the audit auditor ourselves, so we can talk to Ford Ms.

Mazars.

One of the things that they said is they don't know many in the state that are better than Andy.

They're confident in his abilities, um, irreplaceable from an audit perspective.

So I I think that's that's really good for for us to to make sure that we understand and we communicate out.

The one the last thing that I wanted to get, um, Josh, if you could go, I think you were uh you might have had a page off.

I think you're on page 173.

I think you need to go to 172.

Yeah, thank you.

So this is the debt service coverage ratio that I want to make sure everybody is aware of.

So you can see if you look at 23, you can see that we were down at 108 percent.

That was under what we agreed with bondholders to, and I'm not a I'm not a CPA, and there's if Lavon's still here, he could probably talk circles around it.

But if I remember, we we got under 108 percent, 110 is what our bondholders say.

And if we fall below that, they can call bonds, they can force us to raise rates, they can do a whole bunch of different things.

But that that's not what happened here.

We were on track for it, but we did have that water rate increase that allowed us to be able to salvage 24 to get us over 110 percent, and then they've continued on to get us to the 148 percent here.

So that's key for all these people to understand that debt service coverage ratio is something we all need to be asking about, looking at paying attention to.

Yes, go ahead.

The other one thing I would mention on that is just in, you know, a lot of it is pu public and private entities, not necessarily governments, but a lot of bondholders and loan holders, you know, 120 percent is almost kind of a minimum.

I think 110 percent is pretty low, especially on the level of debt we're looking at.

And so while we're in compliance, that doesn't necessarily mean we're where we would want to be, I think, as a city on that.

Right, right.

And we knew we had the consent decree and all those things coming up and and water as well.

So um, okay, that's all I've got.

I just wanted to share some things with with folks.

Director Rigo.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to say Dina, thank you for your leadership of the committee.

Uh thank you to my colleagues are on the committee, the community members that are on the committee uh for the long hours uh that you put in uh at your all's meetings, coming to meetings like this, sharing your expertise, uh, thanks to Andy and his team and uh to everybody involved for the hard work they put in on these financial matters.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Director Kemp.

Thank you, Mayor.

Ms.

Infield, thank you for your efforts and all that you do, and uh 15 years is a long time to continue to offer up your expertise and I appreciate that.

You spoke about the improvement of the pension and the lofty, and that you know, I think you said it was an improvement of like 18 million, if I remember right, when we look went over the numbers, but whatever they may be.

Can you speak more to that as far as what you what we hope to see in the future and how is how do we make those how did those improvements get made, and how do we continue to make improvement in that?

Okay.

Well, one of the things to just clarify, it's not necessarily just the pension, but the pensions were excluded, then we would be back in a positive position.

But the negative has improved by about um let me get back to my sheet.

Uh the governmental activities has gotten better by 18 million.

I do think that um just specifically related to the pensions, and I'll let Andy jump in here if he would like as well.

But you know, the markets have been good as far as the the actual uh amounts and everything are calculated on the various pension obligations, and so those as the markets continue to do well, then the uh pension obligations decrease or increase based on the funds that are available, you know, to calculate what would be available for that.

So Andy, is there something there you want to say specifically?

So in summary, as he comes, you're saying the market's gonna dictate that.

It does.

I mean, there's there are a handful of assumptions that are made by the actuaries that that's they're the ones that can compute these uh these actual liabilities as net pension liabilities, but um the markets improve the overall position of the pension obligation.

So it's basically what the what the future uh projected cash flow required to pay retirees and beneficiaries less what the financial uh condition is of the assets that are built up.

So the contributions that the city makes goes towards those assets.

So there's a lot of different components moving in there, but um we are we we have seen some improvement in the liability uh large part because of the market conditions have been better lately.

Um but we also are seeing you know just better actual experience.

You know, we have these old police and fire plans.

Um, you know, for a while they were seeing the annual contributions continue to go up and up and up.

They would increase them as they needed the the projected future cash flow is a lot higher.

So we kind of see that table off the old plans.

We have about 13 years left on the amortization of uh to fully fund those benefits, and uh the contribution levels are stable at this point, and sometimes they go down some.

So that's those have been kind of a big thorn, I think, in all cities.

That were that we're dealing with.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments from the board?

Andy, thank you to you and your team for amazing work.

Fort Smith is financially strong and getting stronger.

A lot of that has to do with you and your team, and we really appreciate and congratulations on the recognition.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Call roll.

Madam Clark.

Director Settle.

Yes.

Martin.

Yes.

Rego?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Kimp?

Yes.

George Kittsavis?

Yes.

Christina Kitzavis.

Yes.

It's approved.

Seven in favor and zero opposed.

We'll go to item five.

This item is a resolution authorizing partial payment to inline our solutions LLC for construction progress on project number 17-09-C 1.

The partial payment is greater than $750,000.

So by policy, this payment requires board approval.

Director of Engineering Todd Metke will further address this item.

Good evening.

As we commented in the last meeting, this contractor inliner is going very fast, and that's one of the reasons why we have these larger payments than $750,000.

But per ordinance we bring them to you whenever they are over that rate.

So I'm open to any questions you may have about this project.

Okay.

Thank you, Todd.

Any citizens' comments, Madam Clerk.

None indicating.

Need a motion to adopt the resolution.

Second.

Thank you.

Board comments.

Anyone?

Okay.

Seeing none, please call the role.

Directors Martin.

Rego?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Kimp?

Yes.

George Kittsavis?

Yes.

Christina Kitzavis?

Yes.

Settle.

Yes.

It's approved.

Six in favor and zero opposed.

It's time we'll go to the consent agenda.

There are three items on tonight's consent agenda.

We have a resolution authorizing an agreement to accept grant funds from the outdoor recreation legacy partnerships program and the amount of two million four hundred and forty thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents for the May Branch Trail May Branch Railroad Trail Phase One.

We have a resolution authorizing an engineering services agreement with Hawkins Weir Engineers for design of the spradling avenue extension phase two in the amount of eighty-three thousand two hundred and thirty dollars.

We have a resolution authorizing acceptance of bid and award of construction contract with Goodwin and Goodwin related to the addition to the administration building at Solid Waste Services and the amount of $934,518.

Okay.

Thank you.

Madam Madam Clerk, are they any citizens' comments on these?

Uh yes, we do have on each item.

Uh the first being six A, which will be Joey McCutcheon.

Two minutes.

One thing I've learned about uh after looking at this proposal uh is that uh the government has more money than they know what to do with, both at a federal, state, and local level.

Secondly, you guys know how to spend other people's money.

Um what is a two point four million dollar local match?

You can say it comes out of whatever fund, it's coming out of our back pockets.

That's why the next time this tax comes up, we just need to do away with it and bring the board back to accountability.

And you folks who say you're conservative, you're not cutting the mustard if you vote on this.

You know, that's that's a 2.4 million dollar local match.

And look, we've already spent we've already spent how much money in federal money uh on this greenway project on this uh May Branch Greenway project.

I mean, and and here's the real kicker.

If you read the contract, it says that that uh we the people that's the citizens of Fort Smith are gonna be responsible for operations and maintenance in perpetuity.

So it's it's like the this board does every time.

You know, we don't look to the future, we just look at now.

Number one, we're gonna 2.4 million dollar local match.

Number two, in ten years.

Guess who's gonna have to repair this?

Yes who's gonna have to repair all that green money, Christina, that you were the fourth vote on the people.

It's gonna require repairs and maintenance.

And I'm wondering if any of the board has talked to the three people who own private property.

Private property rights mean something.

And I guess those people have been spoken to and they agree with this because this is going right through private property.

And that's a pretty important right in the United States of America.

In fact, it's the foundation of our country.

Next for item 6A is Crystal Cadelli.

She left.

She's gone.

Okay.

And then 6B, Shane McKinney, two minutes.

I think I was 6C.

Oh, wait, I said B and C, but okay.

Yeah, I'm more interested in C first.

Um I I go to the dump office and I have a lot of things in the houses and stuff that I work on.

I don't know how often you guys go, but uh we did several million dollars of building improvements out at our uh solid waste uh facility, and it is so much less efficient than it used to be.

It is so much worse.

Having to wait on a tube to go around and come down and then having to wait for it to go back and pull your truck forward and pull your truck back, the it is ridiculously inefficient.

And before we go spending a million dollars more on something, I'm just curious how many of you actually go to the dump from the perspective of hauling stuff from a house or the kinds of things the citizens really need this for because it's a needed service.

But if we're gonna spend the citizens' dollars, it's not just here's some money, go do your thing.

It's how do we make it better?

Because we didn't make it better last time.

It's literally worse.

It literally takes longer.

Anybody else here ever go to the dump?

Kind of uh it's worse, isn't it?

Well, it used to be.

It used to just be a nice little uh drive-thru thing that popped out now.

You literally pull forward, pull back, pull forward, it it's it's wild.

So before we spend another million dollars, let's find out anything that we're building and make sure it's actually going to be an improvement on what we already have.

Because we do have a nice facility, we have a huge, huge area, and a lot of cities would be happy to have what we have.

But we need to make be better stewards of the citizens' time and efficiency, um, not just spend their money because it's going to look cool when we're done.

Also, uh recycling program, remember that, Naska?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

That's all.

Okay.

It's just time we entertain a motion to adopt all the board want to pull any items off for any further discussion.

I mean, I just had a couple questions on A and C.

Go ahead.

Um, I think ballot points are brought up on point A if staff could just come and just address the private property question.

Coming to the podium of Sarah Duster, Director of Parks and Recreation.

Absolutely.

So, as is the case with any federal grant, it requires us to follow the Uniform Relocation Act, which has safeguards in place to ensure that a process is followed.

We consult with the property owner, and part of the goal of that uniform relocation act is to give them equitable compensation for whatever property we may need.

So have we already made contact with those property owners?

Not for phase one B.

No.

Phase one A, yes, and it was two property owners, and they willingly donated the easement.

They were happy to have the trail along there because it would help give better access to their business.

Okay.

And is this funding going to be just for phase one A or are you gonna be also for phase one B?

So on page 29, the grant agreement, it's been a long process, 2018 to now.

The state, they've been great in working with us and pushing the federal government.

We completed phase one A at their direction because we were given the let loose to go and start incurring expenses from February 1st, 2024 to current.

So we have already completed phase one A with that, and those construction costs are eligible for reimbursement up to 50 percent.

Okay, thank you.

Um my question on question C is uh if I think I saw Mr.

McDonald's there, thank you.

Could you just speak to how this will increase productivity for the landfill?

Yes, thank you.

Uh good evening.

Um the project that we're looking at this evening was put together because what we'd like to do is take the different operations divisions and put them basically side by side in the same building where we have our customer service and dispatch operations.

Right now we have different um uh managers and the customer service kind of spread out throughout the property in working in different buildings.

They don't have a lot of direct interaction.

So when someone has an issue, if there's a customer service issue that comes in or a service item of of any sort uh they have to make a phone call or if they're going to have to meet about it and talk about it, people have got to travel between different buildings to do that.

It's just we're we're kind of spread out it's kind of evolved over time to where we're spread out so that we're not all in one place where we can kind of collaborate with each other and if an issue comes up a problem we could just talk about it and get it solved you know in a quick fashion.

And is saying yes to this tonight delaying any other project that you feel like you've got as well that's going to be on your hopper notes coming from the sinking fund is why I asked no I don't believe so the you know the comments about the the the the scale house and getting in and out of the landfill are well taken and appreciated.

We have a separate uh project that was also approved as part of this year's CIP to take a look at the uh scale house infrastructure uh most specifically the the software system that we have out there to make it more reliable and speed it up one thing that we've seen over the last few years that I've studied myself since I've been here we have a great uh increase in the number of smaller vehicles that come to the landfill uh not just residents and uh maybe rural residents who come in to use the landfill but also a lot of uh contractors and handymen and landscapers and so on that's really increased and that's something that we need to look at so that we can uh it's not it's not just a scale problem I should say it's kind it's a traffic control problem throughout the uh the property but we are looking at the scale house in particular do we have the software in place do we have the uh peripheral uh hardware in place to be able to handle that and and move it through as efficiently as possible and that and the two are don't interfere with each other.

Thank you.

Thank you for your clarifications.

Yes sir I I have a question about A.

So we got $750,000 so we've spent that we're getting reimbursed for that but then the Federal government's come back and said $2.4 million.

We have two point four million I'm gonna defer to Chris for that because he played an instrumental role in getting that increased funding.

Don't go off run off anywhere because I've got questions for you.

Yes sir do you want to kind of just describe that a little bit yeah so uh this grant application the board approved it unanimously unanimously on uh July 24th 2018 as before I was even on the board.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah yeah um in order to apply um federal government I think we all know uh they're they're slow uh at getting things done and so this has been a process.

So when I came in in October of 2023 um you know got to know the departments on that but uh long story short uh I used to you know work for Senator Cotton as his state project instructor one of the uh departments I dealt with was the Department of the Interior um but Sarah gave me a call she said hey uh we got a grant award in uh 2019 and we're waiting on a grant agreement I was like okay let me make some calls so I called uh Jesse Sole who is our uh local field representative and assistant state project instructor for Senator John Bozeman based out of Fort Smith and said hey we'd like to have a conversation with you we are uh getting nowhere in this process and the longer we get delayed the more project costs go up and so had a meeting with her uh their office contacted uh the Department of the Interior and in essence the Department of Interior didn't necessarily like the fact that we brought in our congressional delegation and so uh a couple months later we got back saying hey uh we are sorry and originally one thing that uh Sarah failed to mention was that um you know our original award was 400 7500 but then we got notification several years later oh actually we're gonna reduce your award so that's where we that's what you know led us to contact Senator Resmond but in essence they came back and uh offered us an additional I believe it was 1.7 somewhere somewhere in their 1.7 million dollars so uh it just goes to show the um the importance of having relationships with our congressional delegation uh but not only our federal partners but then our state partners as well okay um Sarah so we we weren't anticipating this um this additional dollar these additional dollars um what does that do to the CIP that we have in place today because so we were already anticipating the additional funding received and what we had done yes it was already in our CIP it listed our original award which was then reduced to 700 twelve thousand five hundred dollars and then it had a line item additional MPS National Park Service funding I think it was 330,000 and then also like 1.2 million dollars from Arkansas Department of Parks Heritage and Tourism.

It listed our original award, which was then reduced to 712,500, and then it had a line item additional MPS National Park Service funding.

I think it was 330,000.

And then also like 1.2 million dollars from Arkansas Department of Parks Heritage and Tourism.

Okay.

That's what they had appropriate they had pitched to us in 2024, so we had been looping that into our CIP accounting for that.

Okay.

So nothing nothing changes on your CIP.

No, sir.

Okay.

No other projects got cut because of the No, sir.

Okay.

This is already when when were you when was your when were you expecting to complete phase one B?

Let's say this funding didn't come.

When were you expecting to complete one B?

We would not have funds to start construction probably until 2029.

Okay.

Because we don't want to start and not have that money.

Okay.

But we do with this coming in.

We also have a $1 million TAP grant from R Dot for phase 1B.

So there's that as well.

But we hope to plan to bid this out either late 2026 or early 2027.

And with completion date of 27.

Late 27 or early 28.

It's going to be contingent on a lot of different things and kind of weather.

And with R Dot being involved, there are 30, 60, and 90 percent plan review processes that we have to go through as well.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Uh Director Savage.

So, Sarah, in the ammo that says this will allow the city to begin seeking reimbursement for eligible costs incurred to date.

What were those costs?

So we are eligible for the engineering and construction we've done since February 1st of 2024.

We're eligible to request reimbursement of 50 percent to that.

And the number engineering right now, we have spent about 190,000.

And then construction, which was that phase 1A that finished in mid-2025, we spent about 1.1 million.

So we're eligible to request right now, once we get our easements and give them to ADPHT, that's a term of the grant agreement to request 50 percent reimbursement of those costs.

So over 500,000.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

That we've already spent.

Yes, ma'am.

All right, thank you.

Okay.

If there are no further comments, um on items B pool.

Why don't we get a motion to adopt all consider agenda items?

So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

If there are no further board comments, please call the roll.

Directors Rigo.

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Kemp?

Yes.

George Gitzavis.

Um to A and yes to the right to the rest.

Christina Kit Savis.

Um yes to A and B abstain on C.

And settled.

Yes.

Martin.

Yes.

All right.

Motion passes with seven in favor on all items with the exception of item six A, which is six in favor and one opposed, and item six C, which was six in favor, zero opposed, and one abstention.

Okay, thank you.

At this time, we'll go to the official forum.

Uh I'm going to pass and we'll go directly to a director Regal.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to uh flash us back all the way to the beginning, uh, make a motion to have as item of discussion on a future study session uh the topic of alcohol sales on Sunday.

I'll second.

Okay, thank you.

Director Good.

Nothing, Mayor.

Thank you.

Director Kemp.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would like to going back to the earlier session.

I would love to make a motion that we'd have a study session at a future date to hear Mr.

Robertson's ideas a little bit more.

I think he's on to something with the idea of uh allowing a paper response where we could start getting feedback or even educating people if they're wanting us to take action.

I think sometimes they don't feel heard because there's not a response to that.

And so maybe if there's a way to look at tuning that up at a future day, I'd love to at least have the conversation.

I'll second it.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Director Josh Gassav.

Yes, sir.

Sherry, you got your pencil and pen ready?

No, it's really board.

I'd like to ask our Jeff to look at I want the airport commissioner, the who was the manager's name?

To come to the board for a study session to discuss the airport.

I think that'd be good, yeah.

Yeah, we need to get something jump started.

Also, I want Tim Allen from the chamber to come to the study session to discuss the chamber.

Yeah, I'd like to know how how he's handling people wanting to move here to Fort Smith or businesses.

And the last three things, I'd like the current water bill for Ben Giran Golf Course, the first T Learning Center, and the current bill for the water park.

And that's it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Director Christian Savage.

Jeff, have we heard anything about from the FCRA to my request to have them appear?

Have we reached out to them?

Sorry.

I think Daniel must have been out of town.

I've not spoken with him yet, but I did reach out.

I'll continue to try.

Not uh bare bones and then what would be what we do at Oak Cemetery, kind of retrofitted for the rest of the cemetery as a cost there.

Uh the other one I'm gonna ask uh to make a motion uh for the first study session in August.

Um Miss Pierre actually beat me to it.

Uh I'd like to talk about data centers.

Um I know we have an ordinance in place, and Maggie can bring all those words to us that we voted on, I think a couple of years ago.

Uh talks about data centers.

I want to bring that in front of the board so we can talk about it.

But also like to see if we can put some board action in there that makes the board of directors uh have to approve a data center.

And the big one is uh can the board approve have to approve a data center that is tied to our water system that's not part of our city.

Uh that is a big thing that I think we should talk about uh because we're a regional water supply.

What I don't want to happen is a s another city outside the city of Fort Smith brings a data center next thing though.

We're we're spending four million or five million gallons a day that we didn't approve.

So I'd like to see if that's legal from a legal standpoint of how we can have the board of directors having to approve a data center.

Um that's tied to our water supply.

So I'd like to do that in the first study session in August, which will be the first study session.

I'll second that.

With um our citizens form at the beginning.

So thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, I want to piggyback up what Director Christina Ketzath said.

Um I I have some interest and have questions about Dear Trail's golf course out at uh at Chaffee, so I want to I want to talk about that as a part of our discussion with FCRA.

I would like this came up in our audit committee meeting, and I I said that I would bring this to the board.

I would like to make a motion to sell the parking garage.

I'll second that.

Okay.

Thank you.

In a heartbeat.

So I think Jeff, we need to look at um, you know, what that means, um, what the impact is, but I think it's time to get that off the books.

Yeah, I agree.

Okay.

Anything else?

Um Mr.

Dingman, you're recognized.

Uh the only thing I would comment on is that Fort Smith is hosting the Arkansas Swimming Long Course State Championships this Thursday through Saturday at Creek Moore Park Pool.

The event will have 363 individual athletes and their families from across the state competing in this event.

The opening ceremony will take place 8 15 Friday morning, July twenty-fourth.

So we will go into uh convening executive session, uh naming the following.

Um we will review uh city administrative candidate applications, uh appointments to community development advisory committee, the electrical code board of appeals, Fort Smith Municipal Employees Benevolence Fund Board of Advisors, Historic District Commission Housing Assistance Board, Port Authority, the Transit Advisory Commission.

Yes, it is.

And we're going to I'm going to turn this over to uh director Lake to discuss the administrative candidate applications and the process we're using.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh upon the re review of the executive session, I will need a concurrence of four directors, but I'd like to make a motion that we would have an executive session of the City Board of Directors for the purpose of interviewing uh Joseph Lasard, Richard McGill, and Robert Savik on Thursday, July 30th at 430 p.m.

at the blue line.

Second.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay, need five.

I'm I'm I concur.

Okay.

Did we get four?

Got it.

Okay.

At this time we would like to make the following announcement make the announcement on the following appointments.

Uh Tiffany, uh Carolyn Mosley, and Heather O'O'Hearn, I think that's right.

O'Hare.

Okay.

Uh and Emily Tredaway to the Community Development Advisory Committee, uh, the Electrical Code Board, uh, Mitchell Hughes, Fort Smith, uh, employee benevolent fund board, uh, Mary Moore, Historic District Commission Robert Clark, and Nate Dean Deeson, uh Housing Assistance Board, Abby McCullum, Port Authority, Eddie Norman, and Transit Advisory Uh Committee, Joe Elskin.

Um, we need approval on all appointments.

Okay, second.

Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

Okay, thank you very much.

There's nothing further, we need a motion to adjourn.

Thank you.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay, thank you.