The Finance & Administration Council Committee of Jonesboro, Arkansas met on March 10, 2026 at 4:00 PM. The committee reviewed and recommended several resolutions to the full council, including purchases for transit vans, a municipal lien, a copier lease, a settlement offer, transit grant applications, a lighting project, and an office lease for E-911 administrative staff. Councilmember Anthony Coleman was absent. Public comment raised concerns about email transparency and pre-meeting practices.
All right, good afternoon, everybody. It's four o'clock. I'll go ahead and call today's meeting to order. Um please record your attendance by pushing the appropriate button. All right. Uh next up is approval of minutes from the finance and administration committee meeting on February 10th, 2026. Move to approve unless there's noted change. Motion of second to approve the minutes. Any questions or comments on the minutes as presented? If not, please record your vote on whether or not to approve. Um we'll move into new business. First up is resolution 2621, a resolution to accept the bid authorizing the purchase of two vans for the transit department, whereas the City of Jones for Arkansas through its Jonesville Economical Transit operations has an ongoing need to maintain and improve safe, reliable, and ADA compliant transportation transportation services for the public, and whereas staff has located vehicles to replace current vehicles that need replaced in our current fleet, and whereas the city has identified the need to purchase two low floor ADA vans to support transit and mobility services, and whereas a quote has been received from created bus sales for two Braun ability low lone star ADA vans, and whereas the quoted vehicle is available for purchase through the state of Oklahoma contract number SW0797 FY2026, which qualifies as a cooperative slash state bid procurement method permitted under under applicable purchasing laws and policies for 156,933 each, three thousand eight hundred and sixty-six dollars total, and whereas this purchase is supported by the following FTA cost match 85% federal and 50% local, whereas efficient funds have been identified and are available for this purchase in the appropriate budget or grant accounts. Now therefore be it resolved by City Council of the City of Jones for Arkansas that number one the City of Jonesboro hereby approves a purchase of two bron ability long star ADA vans from creative bus sales utilizing the recipient reciprocal bid from the state of Oklahoma contract number SW0797M FY 2026 in accordance with the submitted quote dated February twelfth, twenty twenty-six. Number two, Mayor Harold Copenhagen, City Clerk April Leggett are hereby authorized by the city council for the city of Jones for execute all documents necessary to effectuate this this purchase. Move to forward to full council. Second. I have a question. Dr. Coleman. This I'll wait till you get here. This might have already been asked, but I guess it since I don't remember, you know, when you get old, you don't remember certain things. Uh do we have spare vans of spare buses? That's one of the reasons why we're looking at this. Similar to the bus purchases that we made. We actually operate eight vehicles uh for paratransit service every day. Um one of the vehicles that we are currently operating, which this will allow us to replace that, plus have an additional for spare. Um that vehicle has actually been two vehicles put together to make one functioning vehicle. Um this is just us trying to get our stock back up to a useful life benchmark and be able to have those spare vehicles for rotation, keep from running so many miles on each vehicle and allow us to do the standard services that are necessary. How many more routes are we planning to have? Uh I know we were rebuilding routes after COVID when routes were reduced, but what's the ultimate goal as far as how many lines? Um ultimately for the paratransit we will use as you know what it depends on what our service dictates. Um our service every day depends on the schedule as far as who needs trips. Um, you know, we utilize that based upon how busy we are. Like I said, on average, we usually operate seven or eight vehicles uh or seven or eight routes per day for paratransit. Our bus routes we've been operating on uh four routes here recently. Um we will hopefully by the end of the month be at our full five route service plus the two A state service routes for a total of seven routes on fixed route. Is there any plan to and I know it's been mentioned at MPO meetings, Mayor Brooklyn about maybe extending our routes close to Brooklyn or up to Brooklyn area? Has that uh has that is that being considered? There's always a consideration uh just a matter of looking at the feasibility of something like that, uh talking with the various agencies that would be involved in that, trying to work out deals and concessions on that. It would certainly be good for people that live in the Brooklyn area to come to medical appointments here. I'm sure. Yeah. Anything else from the committee? Anything else from staff? Yeah, the the the cost share is listed on there just as a reminder. The 8515. Um I've been trying to make sure that uh we do a better job of highlighting that for our vehicles. That 8515 is for uh any ADA vehicle that we have, that 15% is what the city has to have matches portion. So all right. Thank you.