HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-05-02 Minutes92C
MINUTES OF.A-MEETING ,t , y ;
OF THE r
FAYETTEVILLE CITY COUNCIL
N. MAY 2, 2000 -
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A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council was held on May 2, 2000 at 6:30 p.m. in Room 219
of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
PRESENT: Mayor Fred Hanna; Aldermen Robert Reynolds, Ron Austin, Bob Davis, Trent
Trumbo, Heather Daniel, Kevin Santos, Cyrus Young, and Kyle Russell; City Attorney Jerry
Rose; City Clerk Heather Woodruff; Staff; Press; Audience.
CONSENT AGENDA
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Approval of the minutes of the Apnl 18, 2000 City Council meeting.
SOCCER COORDINATOR: A resolution approvinga budget adjustment to hire a Soccer
Coordinator to administer the youth and adult soccer program for the City Parks and Recreation
Division.
MOVED TO LAST ITEM UNDER NEW BUSINESS.
CLEVELAND STREET: A resolution approving an engineering contract amendment in the
amount of $22,446.00 with Crafton-Tull and Associates for changes to the Cleveland Street
project.
RESOLUTION 57-00 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
HWY 45 WATERLINE• A resolution approving an engineering design contract in the amount
of $36,740.00 with McClelland Consulting Engineering for a new 12 inch water line adjacent to
and on the new Highway 45 East White River Bridge to be constructed in 2000/2001 by the
AHTD and approval of a budget adjustment.
RESOLUTION 58-00 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK
Alderman Heather Daniel stated a citizen had requested that Item 2, the Soccer Coordinator, be
removed from the Consent Agenda. This certainly did not reflect her opinion but, she would like
to hear from the other aldermen. She understood they could take a vote on whether the Council
wanted to hear the item
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Alderman Trent Trumbo addressed Alderman Daniel saying that he would like to have a vote on
it. He had mediated a meeting with the Parks Advisory Board on this issue at which time the
different parties presented their sides. The Parks Board then made a decision. A definitive vote
was taken to have the Parks Department take over the Soccer Association in Fayetteville. This
item was the follow up to the Parks Board decision. He personally did not like to micro manage
the boards appointed by the Council. They do a good job and have good, competent people. He
believed the Council would be rehashing something that had already had a public hearing.
Alderman Bob Davis told Alderman Trumbo that he tended to agree with him. He received a
letter from an individual today. He questioned if the volunteers of the FSA, Fayetteville Soccer
Association, were going to still be used with thenew affiliation. It was his understanding from a
conversation with Connie Edmonston and Bill Ackerman, that yes, that was the situation. They
would be used for advice and to help them out.
Alderman Trent Trumbo answered that unequivocally that was the case. These volunteers have
done a great fob. We have many volunteer groups that do a great job in the City of Fayetteville
That is why this is such a great place to live. The Parks Board had made the decision to add a
full time person to the Parks Department budget, to schedule, manage and run the program. The
soccer program has grown in leaps and bounds because of the good efforts and volunteer work of
these people.
Alderman Bob Davis said another concern of this individual was the cost of the new soccer
league. Connie Edmonston had stated at the last Agenda Session it was going to be about $5.00
cheaper than what they were currently paying.
Alderman Ron Austin said, in other words. Item No. 2 has been pulled and the Council has to
vote on the Consent Agenda.
Alderman Trent Trumbo asked whether or not to pull Item No. 2 off the Consent Agenda.
Alderman Cyrus Young said that was not the way it was set up. It was set up because of the
Consent Agenda and one alderman could ask for an item to be pulled.
Alderman Ron Austin said he believed that this was right.
Alderman Ron Austin moved to approve the Consent Agenda with the exception of Item
No. 2 Soccer Coordinator being pulled. Alderman Kyle Russell seconded the motion.
Upon roll call the motion passed 7-0-1. Alderman Cyrus Young abstained.
RESOLUTION 58-00 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
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Mayor Hanna stated that Item No. 2 would be moved to New Business. It will be Item No. 3
under New Business.
OLD BUSINESS
RZ 00-13.00
An ordinance approving rezoning request RZ 00-13.00 submitted by Charles Venable on behalf
of the City of Fayetteville for property located at 1020 Harold Street. The property is zoned R-1,
Low Density Residential and contains approximately 0.77 acres. The request is to rezone to R-
0, Residential Office The ordinance was left on the first reading at the April 18, 2000 meeting.
Mr. Roseread the ordinance.
Alderman Ron Austin made a motion to suspend the rules and go to the third and final
reading. Alderman Bob Davis seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed
unanimously.
Mr. Rose read the ordinance.
Mayor Hanna asked for public comment on the ordinance before he called for the vote. Upon
roll call, the ordinance passed unanimously
ORDINANCE 4246 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
PERMIT REPORT •
A report from the City Attorney regarding the ordinance requirements for Stormwater
Management, Drainage and Erosion Control permits and Grading permits for CMN Business
Park. (See page 6.)
Mr. Rose stated that he had passed out the report and study that he had done regarding this
during the Agenda Session and the Council should have a copy of it. He said he did not have
anything to add to it. The Council was welcome to ask questions and he would try to help all he
could in regards to understanding the permits. He noted that Mr. Jim Beavers, City Engineer,
was in the audience, and if the need arose, he .would be called uponto answer some of the
questions. Mr. Rose said he thought he was a little ill equipped to answer the engineering side of
this issue.
Alderman Trent Trumbo said from the report that Mr. Rose handed out it looked like. the City's
Engineering Department was doing a good lob in followingthe,city's ofdinance permit process
with all the development. , «; - °a> ., ,
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Mr. Rose said he did not detect any reluctance on their part at all In fact, there was just the
opposite, a genuine desire and commitment to follow to the letter all the ordinances as they
understood them.
Alderman Trent Trumbo said he appreciated all the hard work, diligence, and professionalism of
the City's Engineering and Planning Departments to keep up with all of the city's development.
Alderman Cyrus Young said he had a question regarding Mr. Rose's report. Alderman Young
noted that partial phase permits were mentioned in the report. On the one hand, the
Administration is basically making up parts of the ordinances, and then Mr. Rose is saying that
because it was not specifically prohibited, that it makes it okay. Later in the report it was
mentioned that the Administration also said they were committed to following the letter of the
City Ordinances He was wondering which was correct.
Mr. Rose said he did not find any contradiction at all. Certainly, his point was never to argue
with an alderman. He tries very hard not to do that. He was certainly trying not to argue with
Alderman Young now. He told him there was no place in which such a permit was not allowed
and there was no specific authorization for that permit. He had searched for whether or not in
giving this partial permit any specific part of the ordinance was in any way waived or changed.
In other words, was anything substantially different by doing it this way? The answer he
received from the Engineering Department was, no, that all of the requirements were still
followed and still required. If a setback was required, if anything specific was required, it was
required under the partial as well as under the permanent permit. Again, could you interpret this
ordinance so as not to allow a partial permit? The answer was, yes you can. Interpretation was
going to be a word that the Council was going to hear a lot of this night. This is another good
example of that.
Alderman Cyrus Young said that Mr. Rose mentioned variances. He had read Section 156.04 and
it had dealt with the engineering aspects of it. Of course, again in interpretation, you could say
that they could dream up partial phase permits, but he does not ever remember in their
discussions when all this came up ever mentioning partial or phase permits. In fact, if the
Council had discussed it, and went along with it, he was sure that they would have put something
in there actual conditions to which permits could be approved. But he has never seen in those
ordinances where partial or phase permits were mentioned. He said he might have missed it, but
he did not think so.
Mr. Rose said, again that was in the report. There was no mention of a partial or phase permit.
There was none mentioned there also.
Alderman Cyrus Young said his question was what could the people of Fayetteville do? How
can they put something maybe in the front of the UDO, or something somewhere that could
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prevent or regulate these interpretations to where it goes by the letter of the ordinances as they
say they are doing without making parts of the ordinances up.
Mr. Rose answered Alderman Young that he may have presupposed that everybody agreed with
his interpretation of how this should be read, obeyed, and as it is written. That is not always so.
He did not think he could ever eliminate an interpretation of a particular ordinance or particular
statute. One thing that can be done is to have an appellate process so that you may appeal
decisions that you think are a wrong or ill-advised interpretation. In this case, the City Engineer -
• is the one who is obligated under the city ordinances to make these kinds of interpretations and
calls. If you do not like the way the City Engineer is interpreting a particular ordinance, you may
appeal his administrative decision to the Planning Commission. Occasionally, that Planning
Commission decision, in the case of the Tree Ordinance tonight, will end up before the Council
for their interpretation. Remember also, that these are your ordinances. You as City Council
members, you as aldermen, are the ones that fashion them. If you see or detect an ambiguity in
them or something that is happening that you do not believe is corrector what you or others in
tend to be as written, you certainly have the power to amend that ordinance and to change that
ordinance to clear up any ambiguity and clear up any measure of interpretation which you find to
be ill advised.
Alderman Cyrus Young questioned what actions that the citizens of Fayetteville could undertake
if they saw any ambiguity or a weak places in the ordinance.
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Mr. Rose said they could talk to their alderman about an amendment.
Alderman Cyrus Young questioned if the Administration follows the ordinance as written.
Alderman Trent Trumbo said to Alderman Young that this is the confusion that they eget.-;
Mr. Rose said the Administration really believe they are following the ordinance as it was
written.. And Mr. Rose knows from Alderman Young's conversation here tonight that he does
not believe that.
Alderman Cyrus Young stated that he knew what they discussed when they were in the
committee meetings and when they were passing this. He remembered listening to the citizens
and the citizens wanted protection. They wanted permits before anything happened.
Mr. Rose said to assume that he accepted everything that Alderman Young had just said as
completely factual and true. And Alderman Young was asking him what may he do to insure that
what you believe is a wrong interpretation. How may that be correct? Mr. Rose said he saw a
couple of things that Alderman Young could do. One, you as an alderman, may appeal to the
Planning Commission the decision of Mr Jim Beavers, the City Engineer, and he could have the
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Planning Commission make that call for him. Two, you may seek to by an amendment to the
present ordinance. You may seek to clear up any ambiguity and opportunity that Mr. Beavers as
City Engineer would have to interpret it differently from the way that you want it interpreted.
Those are the only two alternatives that he saw, but there may be others.
Alderman Cyrus Young said that he would be visiting with Mr. Rose about revising both of these
ordinances, specifically the Tree Ordinance.
Mr. Rose answered, certainly.
Alderman Bob Davis asked Alderman Young if he knew of some specific situations that he was
concerned about. Alderman Davis questioned that perhaps Alderman Young was fearful that
maybe his engineering firm is being treated differently than other engineering firms?
Alderman Cyrus Young answered, no, it was not the engineering firms. It was the citizens.
Mariam Bassett saw him at Spnngfest. She is living downhill from a subdivision up there. They
fought that thing for about three times and finally it was approved. One of the reasons it was
approved was because of the storm water management was giving her assurance that, "boy, don't
worry!" But he guaranteed that she was not happy. She is living downhill from the drainage.
Alderman Ron Austin said he had a question for Heather, the Clerk. He knew that this
discussion was going to be in their minutes. Would Jerry's report be a part of their minutes and
public record?
City Clerk Heather Woodruff said she would attach it as an exhibit. (See exhibit A attached.)
Alderman Ron Austin asked if she would please do that.
Alderman Cyrus Young said that was the main reason for him requesting this. Even if they were
not attached, if somebody wanted to read the report, it would be available.
Alderman Ron Austin thanked Alderman Young.
NO ACTION REQUIRED.
Mayor Hanna asked if there were any other comments on Alderman Young's question. If not,
they would move on to New Business
NEW BUSINESS
VA 00-2.00
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An ordinance for VA 00-2.00 submitted by the City of Fayetteville on behalf of property owners
Albert and Marty Pennington for property located at 3 Wallin Mountain Road, West Fork,
Arkansas. The request is to vacate a 30 foot utility easement.
Mr. Rose read the ordinance.
Alderman Trent Trumbo made a motion to suspend the rules and go to the second reading.
Alderman Heather Daniel seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed
unanimously.
Mr. Rose read the ordinance.
Alderman Bob Davis made a motion to suspend the rules and go to the third reading.
Alderman Kevin Santos seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed
unanimously.
Mayor Hanna asked if there were any mere comments'regarding this ordinance? For the benefit
of the audience, it was stated that this was an easement for a light that is used as a warning for
aircraft going into Drake Field. They no longer use that easement. The light that is up there is
battery operated and the gentleman asked to vacate the utility easement to clear the title on his
property. If he passed it on to his heirs there would not be an easement listed.
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Mayor Hanna called for the vote.' Upon roll call, the ordinance pissed unanimously.
ORDINANCE 4247 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
STEELE CROSSING
An appeal of a Planning Commission decision submitted by Alderman Kyle Russell regarding
LSD 00-5.00 (Steele Crossing Shopping Center).
Mayor Hanna stated that Mr. Rose would explain what they were doing.
Mr. Rose explained that two weeks ago the Council heard an appeal of the Planning
Commission's decision to deny large scale development approval The appeal was brought
about by the developers. By action of this Council it was referred back to the Planning
Commission. The Planning Commission has now passed and approved the large scale
development by 6-3 vote. Alderman Russell, as a member of the City Council, has appealed the
decision of the Planning Commission to approve a large scale development. He thought it was
important to everyone to look at what grounds the appeal was taken upon. It was a reasonably
narrow issue. Alderman Russell bases his appeal on the assertion that the Planning Commission
decision violates Chapter 167, the Tree Protection and Preservation Ordinance. Alderman
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Russell is, as required, reasonably specific as to what provision is alleged to be violated. He
alleges that the plan approved fails to provide for what Alderman Russell believed to be a
required 15% minimum canopy under the tree ordinance. They could agree upon some things.
The city ordinances must be followed. They can not pick and choose only parts of those
ordinances that they agree with or like. They have to go with the entire ordinance. They can not
create variances or exceptions that do not exist. The ordinances can not be ignored. You must
care about what they say. Everyone was believed to be in agreement upon that point.
Unfortunately, that agreement does not always cast light upon how an ordinance is to be
interpreted. Interpreted, again, is the key word. Sometimes it is the City Attorney who must
interpret ordinances. Sometimes, as now, the ordinance itself specifically calls for a particular
individual such as the Landscape Administrator, to administer, interpret, and enforce the tree
ordinance. An appeal, incidently, of that decision is to the Planning Commission. The Planning
Commission then is the ultimate interpreter of what goes on In some instances, it ends up in the
Council's lap. In that case, the Council becomes the arbitrator of what the interpretation is of a
particular provision or of a particular ordinance. The interpretation that the Council was called
upon to make, required some background information He wanted the Council to know that there
have been interpretations of this particular issue in the past that he had been a party to. The issue
of the 15% canopy requirement, or whatever canopy requirement, if you will notice in your
UDO, it may be 15% or 20%, but whatever that canopy requirement is and whether or not there
are any circumstances under which a lesser percentage may be accepted, has been the subject of
discussions with his office since even before this ordinance was adopted in 1993. He had
discussed this with the landscape administrators, city staff, planning staff before there even was a
landscape administrator, interested citizens and tree advisory committee members. Up until now,
the ordinance had been interpreted to allow less than 15%. The rationale for that interpretation
had been that under 165.05 E, Replacement Canopy, like or similar trees, it states, "In the event a
tree cannot be preserved as required, the tree replacement as determined by the Landscape
Administrator may be required in lieu of the tree designated for preservation." Some people that
have discussed this issue with him, have stopped right there and have said that is sufficient for
the Planning Commission to become the arbitrator through its tree preservation plan of whether
or not an event has occurred so as to preserve or not preserve a particular tree. The event under
which a tree could not be preserved, at least as to rare trees, as is the case is here tonight, was
argued to him to be found under 167.05 B-6, "Removal when the Landscape Administrator
determines there is no reasonable way the property can be otherwise developed, improved or
properly maintained and the tree saved." That decision would become part of the Tree
Preservation Plan adopted by the Planning Commission on large scale development
improvement. He considered it an illegally defensible way to interpret this ordinance. This
appeal asked the Council to interpret that ordinance in a way that would require the 15% canopy
either without exception or with extremely fewer exceptions than currently exist. For instance,
an individual tree that could not be preserved because of a disease would be considered an
exception If that is what you decided tonight, he would seek to defend that position. The facts,
he did not believe, were not very much in dispute, if at all. The issue was mainly one of law and
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of the interpretation, again, of the city ordnfance! The issue before the Council was not whether
or not to follow the tree ordinance. The Council :must comply with and not ignore the tree
ordinance. The issue was whether or not the tree ordinance in front of the Council allowed a
canopy of less than 15%. The Council 'could choose to follow the interpretation of the past seven
years or the interpretation that was on appeal:" He'Could not make'that decision for the Council
but he suggested that the ordinance, within legal limits, could say what you wanted it to say. He
would suggest that at the very least out of tonight's discussion, it might lead the Council to
perhaps amend this ordinance or make some changes that would eliminate this ambiguity.
Alderman Trent Trumbo asked Mr. Rose if the Council voted to override the Planning
Commission's decision, than this governing body was essentially saying that the Planning
Commissioners, who were appointed by the Council to enforce ordinances, that they as a
governing body on a 6-3 vote, did not abide by the ordinance in their vote. He found this ironic
because two attorneys on the Planning Commission voted in different ways concerning that
issue. It was up to interpretation.
Mr. Rose said if you could find two attorneys interrupted.
Alderman Trent Trumbo commented that he found it interesting that two well respected attomeys
on the City's Planning Commission would have two totally different interpretations of the
existing ordinance.
Alderman Kyle Russell stated that he wanted to say a few words. Jerry took about half of his
statement, but he thought that what he said was accurate. This was not an issue of interpretation.
He thought the people who had interpreted the law one way for seven years were in good faith.
He believed that he was also in good faith by bringing this forward. He wanted to apologize for
any confusioncreated by his original letter of appeal and the mis-citations, not taking into
account the UDO. He hoped that all of the Council received his corrections on that. Also,he
wanted to say that he did not have anything personal against this developer: He was not trying to
block the department store. He was not trying to keep this land from being developed at all. As
the developer and the city's landscape administrator had both pointed out, this ordinance had
been interpreted and enforced a certain way almost since its passage in 1992 Unfortunately for
the people, in his opinion, this interpretation was inconsistent with the language of the law and
its intent. Unfortunately, for this particular developer, now is the first time this interpretation had
to be brought to his attention. He thanked Kim Hesse, the City Landscape Administrator, for
bringing this issue to all of their attention. He assured everyone that if he had been on City
Council six years ago and he knew that the ordinance was being interpreted this way, he would
have done this six years ago. If he had known this was being interpreted this way for an earlier
project, in his on the City Council, he would have done this at that time, also. He had been
familiar with the language of the law, but not familiar with the way it had been interpreted. They
had a dispute in good faith as to what this law meant. The way the city's procedures were set
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up, a staff member got the first chance to interpret the law and then a board or commission, and
in this case the Planning Commission, and then the City Council, and then if a subsequent appeal
occurred, a judge, and then that would be the one that really counted, he guessed, because he was
the one they all would have to abide by. His appeal was based on the failure of the current plan,
and in his opinion, the way the ordinance read and was intended to be interpreted back in 1992.
Under those considerations, the plan failed to comply with the 15% minimum canopy
requirement. As Jerry said, the general rule was that if a C-2 property was being developed and at
least 15% of the property was covered in existing tree canopy, then you must preserve enough
existing trees to keep, at least, 15% of the property covered in pre-existing canopy. The only
way to get around the minimum requirement, was as Jerry quoted, in the event that a tree could
not be preserved as required to reach the 15% thresh hold. Then and only then, may the
Landscape Administrator use her discretion and authorize replacements to reach the minimum
amount. This part of the ordinance did not include the word reasonable, as in "the property could
reasonably be otherwise developed, improved, to be properly maintained and the tree saved."
Under this interpretation, it was his opinion that the reason this section was put in this way to get
around the minimum canopy requirement in the ordinance, was not so there could never be
exceptions to it, but as Jerry said, in his second option there, so that the City Council, the
Landscape Administrator, the Planning Commission, would only have the authority to grant
replacements in extreme circumstances. Examples such as, if you had a 50 acre lot with seven
and one half acres covered in trees, and that was the flat part, and the rest of your lot was on a big
mountain or slope and there were no trees on that slope. Then they would be required to let you
cut down some of that 15% in order for you to be able to develop anything on that property
within the current zoning. That was why he thinks this provision was put in. He did not think
that they were in a situation with this particular plan where the discretion was even triggered to
authorize replacements because these trees that they were talking about could be preserved as
required up until the 15% minimum at least. It may require a smaller store, or moving the store,
or a two story store, or it may require them to get a variance on their parking. He believed that,
as Jerry alluded to his interpretation of this ordinance, this was not the kind of situation where
the Landscape Administrator or anyone else had the discretion to waive that 15% requirement.
There were situations where he thought that would occur, but he believed they were extreme
situations and not this situation. As Jerry said, there was more than one way to interpret the
ordinance. They could all agree to disagree if the Council felt they could not be preserved as
required language applied to this situation. The Council could simply vote the other way on the
interpretation question. He would like to see a judge interpret this law at some point so they
would know. Also, so people like himself, who believed that it was intended to be interpreted
this way would know whether they needed to change it or not. Until then he did not think they
needed to change it. He thought the law as written was intended this way. He was taught in law
school that when there was an ambiguity, you went to the legislative intent. He based his
interpretation of this ordinance on two other provisions One was the purpose section of the Tree
Protection and Preservation Ordinance that lists, he believed, fifteen purposes. They were tree
friendly purposes. One of them was Purpose I under 167.01 which was to preserve desirable
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trees. The other, and he thought an ordinance should be read to maximize its purpose,
interpreted to maximize its purpose wherever possible. The other provision he based it on was
the 150.07 which was the conflicts provision. The Rare and Landmark Tree Ordinance allowed
for more discretion and could be said to have applied to this situation as well. This was not
really a conflict, but an overlap since they were talking about rare and landmark trees that were
also in the minimum canopy requirement. The city ordinance read that where a conflict arises
between one section of the UDO and another section of the UDO the most stringent section shall
apply. Given those two sections, that was what he based his interpretation of the ordinance upon.
The Council was free to disagree. As Jerry stated, there was more than one way to interpret this
and that was his interpretation and he believed Jerry was accurate in stating the issue and stating
that this was a question of interpretation. He just did not believe this particular situation
encompassed the "cannot be preserved as required" language. ,
Alderman Ron Austin said he had a couple of questions for Alderman Russell. In the minutes of
their last meeting on page two when Mr. Rose read the motion to remove the item from the
Agenda and refer it to the Planning Commission for reconsideration, it stated , "and retum to
City Staff and the Planning Division with a plan that would meet the large scale development
approval." 'Alderman Santos moved that the Council include some experts to guide them and
Alderman Russell seconded that motion. And then when the motion, he thought, was withdrawn
showed a little approval of what they were doing. Then on page six when the motion was read
Alderman Trumbo moved approval and he himself seconded the motion and it was passed
unanimously. He was just wondering in good faith what was Alderman Russell's intent when he
voted to send it back for reconsideration for a plan that would be acceptable?
Alderman Kyle Russell said, sure, he would be glad to answer that question. There was language
in that motion, as he recalled Mr. Young double checked to make sure that there was language in
that motion saying the Council was sending it back to the Planning Commission in an effort for
them to compromise, use good faith and come up with a plan that was acceptable and complied
with all city ordinances.
Alderman- Ron Austin said that was not how that read.
Alderman Kyle Russell said he thought there was language in the motion that said comply with
all city ordinances. -
Alderman Cyrus Young said that was why he ordered a clarification of that motion..
Alderman Ron Austin questioned if Alderman Russell approved those minutes.
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Alderman Kyle Russell replied that the motion itself was read by Jerry and that was what the
Council voted on. The minutes were not what they voted on except for right now.
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Alderman Ron Austin said they become the interruption.
Alderman Kyle Russell said the motion was what was binding upon the Council and that motion
included language that said "comply with all city ordinances". As Jerry said, there was more
than one way to interpret this ordinance. If you believed this plan complied with the Tree
Preservation and Protection Ordinance, Mr. Rose had said that was a legally defensible position
in court He had also said that his position was a legally defensible position in court. It is a
reasonable good faith dispute as to whether this particular plan complies. He believed that this
was not a situation which triggered the Landscape Administrator's discretion to authorize
replacements under the law as it is written. If the Council did not believe that way, They did not
have to agree with him. What he was saying when he voted to send that back to the Planning
Commission, was that he was going to approve a plan when it had 15% and that was in
compliance with the city ordinances. There were a whole other plethora of ordinances involved
in large scale development. Some of them required or authorize Planning Commission discretion
in great negotiation and compromise. This one, he did not think was one until the Council got to
that situation where a tree cannot be preserved as required. He was saying that he did not think
they were in that situation.
Alderman Trent Trumbo said he thought both sides were pretty adamant in their beliefs so,
obviously, this would end up in a court for a judge to decide Just as the Council did with the
Town Center where the citizen's nght was filed in the court. They had been through that and
they lost on every issue except one remaining issue and he believed that this is where this issue is
going to go. They had the Planning Commission 6-3 on different interpretations. The Council
was probably going to have a 4-4 vote that night on different interpretations. He believed they
should move forward and have public debate and vote on it.
Alderman Kyle Russell said it may or may not go to a Judge. If it didn't, he would abide by
whatever interpretation was adopted that night. He would move to change the ordinance through
the Ordinance Review Committee, if he believed that was what needed to be done. Obviously if
it went to a Judge, then they would all have to abide by the Judge's ruling until the ordinance was
changed.
Alderman Trent Trumbo answered in the affirmative.
Alderman Kevin Santos said that one thing he would like to clanfy was they kept talking about
the 15% canopy preservation when they are talking about these trees, or almost 100% of them,
are classified as landmark or rare trees which was the more strict, the more student, stringent,
whichever was the nght word, a section of the ordinance, so actually the ordinance should have
required that 100% of those trees should be saved.
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Page 13
Alderman Kyle Russell stated loud interruption from the audience.
It was his position that the ordinance authorized Miss Hesse to require preservation of all those
trees, but it mandates that the Council, at least, require preservation of the minimum.
Alderman Ron Austin said that if you got into 100% issues, you would have some real problems
because if they took, who was going to decide what was a bush or what was a tree. That was
really a difficult thing. He said he was serious and if they got into absolutes like that, he believed
they had a good plan here. He believed the Council needed to vote it and let it go or not.
Alderman Cyrus Young said in response to that, as far as deciding which trees or whatever, the
developer themselves specified that whole area for preservation on the original preliminary plat.
If you went by the preliminary plat, all of them should be preserved. That was what he
understood Kim Hesse to be saying. She said she could be reasonable. We don't have to
preserve all of them so she goes to the ordinance and says, "well there is provision that requires
15%". If 15% had been preserved, she would have gone along with it.
Alderman Bob Davis said to Alderman Young that Miss Hesse did go along with it and in the
Planning Commission she changed her opinion somewhere along the line and agreed to the
compromise that was worked out, he guessed between the developers, Mr. Rankin and between
her. In this ordinance 167.0B6 evidently where it talked about the Landscape Admmistrator;had"
that ability to interpret this as she so_ idesited, Acbording'to What he:saw when he watched it that
night on TV and also from what he read in the paper, Mr. Odom asked her twice if she was in
agreement with what was being done and she said yes both times, that she had no problem with
the 10.25 or the 10.5 preservation of what was that`. So,' in his book Miss Hesse informed the
Planning Commission she thought the compromise she had worked out was legit. y
St c' A° k e r ` ,
• c.
Alderman Kevin Santos said he had the Planning Commission minutes in front of him, and
where Commissioner Estes asked if this applicant's proposal this evening .satisfied this
recommendation? And Hesse said, "awfully close. I mean, they have, what can I say, we all saw
that this afternoon or morning is that the representation of that full canopy, they are preserving a
real prime chunk of that". He said he believed Kim was there at the meeting tonight and could
speak for herself as to her interpretation. Interruption
Alderman Kyle Russell said he would like that.
Alderman Bob Davis said Mr. Odom also asked her twice towards the end before they took their
vote, if it was in compliance, and both times she said yes.
Alderman Cyrus Young said that was part of the appeal. Were they doing it correctly by the -
ordrnance?
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 14
Alderman Bob Davis said he was going by what the City Staff at that point and time said before
the vote interrupted by Alderman Young, that was your interpretation They were
depending upon her comments to decide how they were going to vote.
Alderman Cyrus Young said the Planning Commission was an independent body who was
suppose to make a judgment too, just like the Council was going to have to make an independent
judgment.
Alderman Bob Davis said that this was true.
Alderman Kyle Russell said he would like Miss Hesse to speak for herself if she was there. And
he remembered watching the Planning Commission meeting on TV, as well, because he
remembered her saying, he could not find it in the minutes, he had not read the minutes, but he
remembered her saying that she was approving the plan even though it still was okay with her
but it was not in compliance, or something like that. He would like Kim to explain that if she
could.
Mayor Hanna said he thought before they started putting people on the stand, he believed the
Council needed to decide what they were voting upon here. One was, the Council was going to
be voting on Alderman Russell's motion to over tum the Planning Commission's decision
regarding large scale development interrupted by Alderman Russell saying he had not made a
motion yet and he thought that was what the discussion needed to be confined to.
Alderman Kyle Russell said the discussion was that his appeal was based on an interpretation of
the Tree Preservation Ordinance as applied to this plan. Several Council members had stated that
they were basing their opinions, at least in part, on Miss Hesse's approval of the plan. So he
wanted Miss Hesse to explain her approval of the plan and what seemed to him to be a
contradiction in terms, at least when he saw it the first time, how she could say this plan was
okay, yet that it was still not in compliance with the ordinance.
Alderman Trent Trumbo said also, Kyle, you know he gives a lot of weight to six commissioners
on the Planning Commission who voted the way they voted.
Alderman Kyle Russell said that was fine for Alderman Trumbo to give that weight to it.
Alderman Trent Trumbo answered sure.
Alderman Kyle Russell said he was saying that under his interpretation of the ordinance, he did
not believe that Kim or the Planning Commission or anyone else, had the authorize replacements
to reach the minimum canopy until the Council got to a more extreme situation than what they
were in now.
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 15
Alderman Trent Trumbo answered right.
Alderman Kyle Russell said if you did not agree with that, if you agreed with the six planning
commissioners, than possibly Miss Hesse's approval of the plan, although he would still have
liked for her to explain that, you did not have to vote the way he voted.
Alderman Trent Trumbo answered, "sure."
•
Alderman Bob Davis answered, "right."
Mayor Hanna said he thought it was time for the Council to open the discussion up to the public.
First, he asked the audience not to hold signs up. These might block other people's view which
was not really appropriate in a Council room. Number two, there were two sides represented
here, as Mr. Russell had alluded to and both of them had legitimate feelings about it. He asked
both sides to respect one another. He asked for there not to be,.any outbursts in the Council
room. Thrs'was really not appropriate. He said he believed it showed disrespect for the other
group that did not happen to agree with you. They had as lot of discussion on this, and as he had
said, unless he misunderstood it, and he thought the City Attorney had agreed that the motion
that they were discussing was to over turn the Planning Commission's decision on large scale
development.
.„,. w.
•
Alderman Kyle Russell said he would say that was the issue the Council was discussing. He had
not officially made a motion.
Mayor Hanna said that was what the Council was going to vote on. If he wanted to, he was the
one who called it up here. If he did not want them to vote, then the Planning Commission's
decision would stand. So he was going to open it up to the public. He asked to kind of hold the
comments down. A three minute limit on people speaking was asked for. He wanted everybody
to be heard that wanted to be heard, but they should avoid readdressing the same issues. The
podium was opened to the first speaker.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Bob Kittinger:
Good evening. I live at 3829 Gardenia Drive in Fayetteville which is in
Ward 4. The matter that we are now discussing has unfortunately been
divisively framed as an either or issue between business developers and
environmentalists. Both sides would leave you to believe that the
opposing factions are basically without merit. The real issue that we have
here tonight transcends this specific development. What we are really
talking about is the quality of live that we want in Fayetteville. To me
quality of life is like a leg with three stools. The first leg of that stool is the
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 16
quality court of services provided by the city government. The second leg
of that stool is the quality of our physical environment. And the third leg
of that stool is our economic environment. I have lived in North America.
I have lived in Europe and I have lived in Asia. I have seen some pretty
bad areas. So, I have seen the effects of indiscriminate industrialization
and I vehemently oppose that kind of mindless trashing of our
environment but however, in this case, we have two intransigent sides,
some that even wish to ban cutting of all rare and marked trees. Now if
you are going to ban all cutting, there won't be any homes that will be able
to be built. There won't be any businesses that we are going to be able to
bring in here. And while I travel the Fulbnght Expressway virtually
every day, I have never witnessed anybody using that area that we are
talking about in terms of a development. However, I have noticed lots of
people enjoying the Farmer's Market on the Square. I have noticed our
city parks, and even though that environment is not the original growth, as
been planned, it is still being utilized far more than this original canopy
that we are talking about. And this proposed big box store also plans to
plant more than twice as many new trees as there is being eliminated.
Eventually as we look at that place it might even start to look more like
one of those artificial parks that people actually go to and relax and utilize.
The third leg of the stool is our economic environment. All of us want
good schools, city services, libraries, senior citizen centers, parks, bike
trails, hiking paths, public transportation. Somebody has gotta pay the bill
for that. Now if we chase away all the industries we have and we refuse to
let any new industries in because we don't want to cut down any trees,
even though they want to replace them. The tax burden ends up on the
home owners, it ends up on all the people that rent. Somebody has gotta
pay the bills. What I challenge all the citizens of Fayetteville to start
doing, is thinking outside the box and work together to support the issues
that we have to address to realistically improve our quality of life.
Tonight I would urge our City Council representatives to support the
Planning Commission's decision to approve this responsibly proposed
development of a business park and more aggressively engage our citizens
and potential developers to interact so we can avoid this kind of
divisiveness in the future. Think globally, act locally. Thank you.
Mary Alice Serafini: Good evening. 1 am President of the League of Women Voters of
Washington County. I think you are all aware that the League of Women
of Voters here has worked for years for an adequate tree preservation
ordinance in Fayetteville Following a formalized study of the issues that
were involved and a review of ordinances in many cities, the League
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City Council Minutes
1 -May 2, 2000
Page 17
g th
arrived at a consensus to support the Fayetteville Tree`P ote tion and
Preservation Ordinance -for the City of Fayetteville. We ask you to please
e
enforce the true spirit'' of the FayettevilleTree Protection and Preservation
Ordinance. A lack of enforcement of this ordinance would be a clear
violation and would set up precedent for the future that we do not want to
deal with. Thank you.
Patricia Mikkelson: I come not with statistics, although I have read studies to support this. My
address is 2414 Blackberry Lane. I want you to know that this issue has
been so emotionally challenging for me: It has challenged me to the very
core. 'I have never been involved in politics in my life because I have felt
so hopeless about the process of getting involved because it seems like
whenever we ask our government to do certain things often it seems, it
appears that economics rules the decision. And I am not here really to try
to persuade you to do anything, but to share my heart and I know that you
are people. I know that you value living on this planet. You must value
integnty and you must value love. I am sure most of you have children.
And my heart yearns for more than anything is for connection. Can you
believe that? Can I speak about this at a Council meeting? .1 want
connection with everybody. And I believe that if we can truly sit down
and discuss and dialogue and let down our arguments and quit debating,
that we can find a common solution that is win, win, win for the trees, for
the people who are considered environmentalists and extremists, like
perhaps myself, for the developers, for the businesses, for the government.
I know it can be done I am not good at remembering things. I am terrible
at keeping track of research, but I have read books. I have read books that
it has been done. The communities have come together in diversity and
solved their problems. I want to do research on this. I will be presenting
this to you and I hope that we can sit down and dialogue, and whatever the
decision is tonight, I am going to focus on that because I am tired of
coming to meetings. I must confess. I am not good at coming to
meetings. I loved the sing -a -long in front of the Council. That was great!
I'll do that. So thank you and I want to thank everyone from the bottom of
my heart, everyone for coming. You are all wonderful, all of you. Thank
you.
Anita Schnee:
My address is 2399 Abbott Lane in Fayetteville I -am coming to this issue
a little bit late so I don't have command of the facts as much as I would
like. But I just wanted to tell you that I was listening to some music this
morning as I was getting ready for work. What 1 was listening to was by a
Nigerian man who comes from a village that was drown in a hydro electric
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Joe Williams:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 18
project in Africa. I was very moved by the music. It was very, very
beautiful. The story was about how his village was gone but he really
hoped that the values that the village represented over centuries would still
be, live on in his music. The lighter notes were something about well, the
village is nowhere, but it is also everywhere. And I am thinking, thank
goodness, you know that is nice, here the people of Afnca have electncal
power, have the power to raise their standard of living, and there is this
incredible musician still around from that village to spread the good word
about the traditional values of that place. And then I stopped and I
thought, wait a second, this is not nowhere, this is Fayetteville. We have
an opportunity here to preserve trees that have been around longer than
any of us on the planet and what is the trade off that we would want to do?
Would we want another shopping center? There is something very wrong
with that. It is one thing to drown a village in the name of giving electrical
power to third world countries and people who are suffering And it is a
real different question to sacrifice those trees for another shopping center.
There is something really wrong with this. Again, I am not sure of my
facts and figures, but from what I understand we are sitting here tonight
arguing about whether we are going lose 85% of the trees or 90% of the
trees. That is not the debate 1 want to take part in. I want to find out
whether there is a pasture next to this property where we can make Kohl's
Department Store welcome in Fayetteville, but not at the expense of the
trees. And not to give a variance of an ordinance that would preserve only
15% of these kinds of landmarks. So, I thank you for your attention. And
1 will not be late to the issue again I promise you.
I live a 585 North Rockcliff Road. I realize the importance and the
difficulty that you all must have in making this decision, It would be
difficult to find fault with either side as there is strong grounds for either
side of this issue. And we would have to accept the decision that is made,
however, I think it is coming down to, as been said, this is a very
ambiguous law Until it is corrected one way or the other, in the past
seven years it has been interpreted in one direction. I have watched these
meetings on TV many times, but this is the first time that I have attended
and the first time I have certainly spoke, so please bear with me. It is my
belief that you accept the recommendation of the Planning Commission's
revised plan. They have done an excellent job of trying to marry both
sides of the issue. In trying to follow the letter of the law as it has been
applied by them and yourselves in the past while being fair and reasonable
to all parties. Having grown up in Northwest Arkansas and raised my
children for the past eight years here, I love Northwest Arkansas. For
John DuVal:
Andrea Foumet:
f;a 938
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 19
0
many years I transferred many times in the United States with a former
company. Having living in Chicago for two years, I had the opportunity to
shop Kohl stores in 1990 and 1991. Kohl's is an excellent company and
very customer service oriented while offering great values. They would be
a great addition to our city. On the business note for the past several
years, I have been employed in Fayetteville and have developed a solid
business relationship with Kohl. As a vendor of Kohl, I find them to be an
honorable company and sincere in keeping great looking stores inside and
outside. About 300+ employees, 6-10 of these jobs are dedicated to our
'Kohl's account. With the jobs that will be offered in the construction
work for this center and the jobs offered by Kohl's; the other large anchor,
and the remaining retail stores proposed, the investmentof the developers
and the taxes that will be generated, I once again recommend that you
accept the revised proposal of the Planning Commission to allow the
center to be built The Planning Commission has faced this decision head
on and they dealt with the problems and resolved them to their
satisfaction. I hope you show the same sincere effort to resolve this in a
fair and reasonable manner by accepting the Planning Commission's
decision to allow the center. Thank you.
I live at 1131 Eastwood In the papers, I believe the Planning Commission
was praised for compromising but I would like to remind the City Council
and the Planning Commission that a compromise is not always good. It is
not always a reasonable thing or a fair thing. We are usually glad when
people compromise rather than going to war over some issue. If some
fanatics had planted a bomb in this room and were threatening to set it off,
that might be time to compromise, but I can't imagine any reason for
wanting to compromise a good law, a fair law, a reasonable law which is
on the books here in Fayetteville and which I believe was never meant to
be compromised. Thank you.
Does everyone want to take a deep breath? I live at 1214 North Shady
Lane, Ward 2. I don't know if you have talked about the petitions that you
have, no?
Alderman Kyle Russell answered, "feel free to."
1; €.
Andrea Fournet: r;.. We had 600 petitions, 600 names arid now there is 48 more here. And
they represent, I went ahead and got Ward numbers because I wanted to
r . make sure that everybody was represented. Some people were saying, "I
never from anybody in my ward". Well; there is probably, over the 600
t
•
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 20
signatures, there is an equal amount from every ward of people signing.
And basically the petition is just asking you to up hold up the current tree
ordinance. And I wanted to, this is, a pictures speak a thousand words, so
I want to get this on television. Basically my background, I'm now a yoga
teacher, but my background is environmental science and urban planning
and I was a real estate broker. I worked with developers. It is not about
them saying, "get out of here, don't do it". You know, they have had to
come far because they started at zero. But if they had started at fifteen,
they would not have had to come from zero or at the 15% or whatever the
current tree ordinance says. It is a misunderstanding, I believe, and a mis-
communication by the parties involved because the law has been for seven
years fluctuated, nobody has held the line. We are setting a precedence.
My question is that it is about a legacy A legacy, because I was here, I
moved here when you guys passed, not all of you on the Council, but
when it was changed from agriculture to 300 acres to commercial, and
there was an issue about that. The biggest change in the history of
Fayetteville and with that change comes these problems. If we can stick to
what we currently have, then those eventually, of course the developers are
going to fight it tooth and nail. But the economics are here. They will
stay. They will come. On a side note I made a call to corporate
headquarters of Kohl's and they kind of scratched their head, and you guys
can venfy this for me, we don't know about a store going into Fayetteville.
So if you guys can verify that for me. Are you from Kohl's? No. You're
not I have the name. I have the number. I don't know! Nobody ever
called me back. They said, "hmmmmm, we'll have to get back to you".
So, thank you
Steve Frankenberger: I live at 414 West Prospect here in Fayetteville. Ron, I think the other
night at the Agenda Session you made the statement that your constituents
were calling you to compromise this, to make it go away. I think
everybody in this room would like to make this issue go away. But if I
were to put together a plan to make sure that this kind of fire fight
happened every time, this is the way I would do it. I would vary from
the 15%. I would treat every time a plan came up, I would treat it
differently. 15% equals 15%. It is simple math. I think the surest way to
make sure that we have a fire fight down here every time someone starts a
chain saw, it is to vary from it. Question? Why aren't we compromising
and varying from 15% up, instead of from 15% down all the time? I don't
see it! I think this is a sure fire way to generate controversy, animosity
and hard feelings amongst the good people of Fayetteville. Compromise.
It is a good thing. This is not the time. Let's compromise up for the next
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 21
eight years to make up for, the next six years to make up for the last six
years of compromising down.
•
Mayor Hanna said he was going to stop the public comment if the noise level was not reduced.
Steve Frankenberger: How many developers would want to operate under that kind of condition?
The people of this town that are in the opposition from the developers, tree
cutters, if you want to call them. We have held our nose and bit our
tongues and set on our hands for six years when we should have been up
here speaking. It is now time for the developers to sit on their hands, bit
their tongues and hold their nose, and let's go the other way with this.
You may not like it. It may not be something that really feels good but it
is fair. It's fair. Let's say no to this one. This is not the last lot in
Fayetteville that is available for development. There are other place to go.
There are no more trees like these. Thank you very much.
Kim Russell:
Janice Ryan:
I live at 2861 Strawberry Drive. And I just want to say that a law is a law
is a law. You made a 15% law. Stick with the 15% law. You are going to
make an exception to one developer and another developer:is going tor
come to town and you are going to -Say, "oh, well, you made a`n exception g„
for the Kohl, why don't you make an exception for the Target? Why don't
you make an exception for,;Old Navy?. If you riiake'ezeeptions to law,
people are going to be breaking the law all the time.. That is like; oh, this
person over here, the speed limit is 60. Oh, I was going 65., Well, okay,
you can go but the next person I stop, he,didn't go 60 so I'm not going to
let him go. I'm going to write him' a ticket for $250or howeder much it is.
You have to abide by the law whether you are the mayor, or you're five. I
mean, you abide by the law. It's a 15% law. You are not going to
fluctuate. If the developer, developers come and go and we will have
plenty of them come to our town. And plenty of them will come and go.
And we will have great stores. And our economics will be just fine
without them. Or if they come and accept it, they accept it. If they don't,
they don't. That's all I have to say.
I live at 506 Adams Street represented ably by Kyle Russell and Cyrus
Young. I would like very much to thank both of you for what you have
done on this issue. I recently took a trip down to Houston to visit family
and -coming back up I drove through Dallas, Plano, Richardson and
McKinney, Texas, an area in which I lived for about 30 years I passed
two Kohl's stores that had not been there the last time I was through that
area. I wished I could have stopped and gone in, but I had dogs in the car
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Kay DuVal:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 22
and I couldn't. They were big, ugly hunk of concrete boxes sitting in the
middle of big empty parking lots. I saw not a tree. I saw nothing
attractive. I was really very disheartened because I had heard through these
meetings which I have attended and or listened to, that were a store that
we would welcome to the area. After looking at the extenor of these
stores, we are not going to welcome these stores to our area. They are
ugly! And to cut these trees down for any purpose is just an abomination.
This is not our purpose here, to destroy our city. I have lived in places
where that is what they did. These places are still available for anybody to
go move to them. They will cut down every tree you want to go build a
house or department store or 500 department stores in Plano, Texas. You
will have no problem doing that whatsoever. But I don't anybody sitting
in this room wants to live there. I don't think anybody in this room wants
this place to look like that place. At least, there it is flat. If you cut the
trees down, your hillsides are not going to slide into your neighbors land.
If we cut these trees down here, we're in a lot of trouble. I look at these
hills here and see them covered with trees and it is a joy to look at them. I
worry how much longer will I be able to look at them. How much longer
until when I look at those hills is it going to look the hills of San Francisco
where you see nothing but building, building, building, building. I really
hope that you all will do what we have asked you to do and stick with the
tree ordinance. Thank you.
I live in Ward 1 at 1131 Eastwood also. I thought that since we both vote.
That is the street that is known by it's descnption, the one that runs up the
hill from the Root School basketball courts. Everybody knows that. My
first concern that good laws and good ordinances be upheld. I do care
about the trees but less someone think that I don't about people and jobs, I
want to state clearly that people and jobs do matter me. I care about the
people who use to work at Campbell and Lewis Brothers, and later,
Campbell and Bell on the Square, and Mr. Guy, and Montgomery Ward,
and Anthony's and Service Merchandise. I care about the people who
work at Stage, Steinman, Silktree Factory, Home Depot, jobs in all of
those businesses which have filled the spaces vacated by former
businesses. I worry about the jobs people hold in the Mall, at Sears,
Penny's, Dillard's, and all the smaller stores that appear and disappear
practically over night. Bigger is not necessarily better. I think a store the
size that Kohl's plans to build doesn't create new jobs it more likely
recycles old jobs. And when Kohl's, if it ever is supplanted by a bigger,
newer idea it, too, will vacate the premises, leaving Fayetteville with a
giant size empty building and a bigger slab of concrete over dead soil
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 23
where nothing but weeds will grow for centuries. Thank you.
Loud clapping from the audience.
Mayor Hanna said he was going to ask the audience one more time to please not clap during the
speaking. If the disruptions continued, public input would cease.
Robert Reus:
I live in Downtown Fayetteville. First, I would like to ask our side to
please restrain yourselves." -I know it makes you feel good to clap but rt is
not fair to this legislative process that we're going through right here. So,
just, I mean, please just restrain yourself, because I think the Mayor is
correct in this. We should have more respect for the whole process, as
much as it makes us feel good. This whole situation is so sad and so
unnecessary when we see a company corning in from out of state, like a
bulldozer rolling overoour ordinances and our' trees and leaving behind
what is going to be another concrete -and asphalt desert. It doesn't have to
x' < r be that way. The people; in this community, I believe, after all the
4 .
campaigning I have donein this town, I really think they have a lot respect
for the environment but I don't think that respect is being respected right
now I mean I don't think there's- anybody -that really understands the way
these people feel I don't think we can stopyou all from going away and
letting these bull dozers roll but that doesn't mean that we are helpless. I
will for one will tell you, dust state flatly that I will never go onto this
property. I will never patronize this store. And I don't really think that
half of the respectable people in this town that really care about the
environment are going to do it either. So it is just so sad that this is such a
terrible waste. We could have had a nice development. We could have
had a park like setting. We could have incorporated. We still can
incorporate these trees. It is being done in other places into a really nice,
environment that people enjoy and want to go to. But if this is going to be
another concrete and asphalt desert to replace these 100 year old trees, you
are going to have to do business without me. Thank you.
Morty Newmark: I live at 1039 Overcrest Street. My wife and I have a business at 275
• Huntsville Road. I am not so much address the trees or retail. I love trees
and I love retail. What I would like to say is that in 1997 my wife and I
bought the building that we have our business in. It takes up a whole
block between Combs and Willow Street on Huntsville.. At that point we
hired a landscape architect to create a plan to renovate that block. I don't
know if you all pass by and see the building that has all these waves on it.
.I1 is kind of creative. And part of that plan was to create a sidewalk.
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Gerald Klingaman:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 24
There was an existing sidewalk that had not been kept up by the city at all.
It was broken up in pieces. It was just a mess. And so at our own expense
we were going to put in a sidewalk We had the architect include that in
the plan. The architect had a four foot sidewalk in that plan. We later
found out as we went along in our project that the city calls for a five foot
sidewalk and this was a lot of extra money to pour that concrete and
remake the design and even though every sidewalk connecting to that was
four feet, even though when the city comes in and does a refurbishing of
an existing sidewalk that is dilapidated. They had put in a four foot
sidewalk but we were asked to put a five foot sidewalk. I didn't come to
the Planning Commission or anybody else and say, "can't we do a four
foot and a half foot sidewalk? Or can't we, you know, four foot eight
inches sidewalk"? We took the law at its face value. It cost us an extra
thousand dollars which is not much compared to what the folks are
spending out there at CMN Park. I can appreciate that because I know it
takes in a small way to create something beautiful and I sure they have that
in mind, too. But we followed the law and so, what I am saying is if small
business people in Fayetteville can follow the law, if we are expected to
follow the law, does that mean that if I can make a deal, how big does my
development have to be? Do I have to go into a large scale development
to cut a deal? Or can a small business person in Fayetteville get an even
shake even though they not generating the tax dollars that a park like this
is going to generate? So what I am saying is what kind of signal do we
want to send to the small business people of Fayetteville and to everybody
else? Are there two standards? Are there different ways to look at the law
and if so well, maybe the next time I put a sidewalk, or the next times I do
something, maybe I should come to the Planning Commission before you
all and say, "hey! Let's cut a deal"! You know I can bring this much tax
money with my retail or whatever it is. But I don't think that is what you
all want. That is not what I want. If the law says basically 15% or it says
five feet for a sidewalk, well, by god, it's going to be a five foot sidewalk
So I just ask you all to consider that and let's keep everything on the same
playing field and let's make it equal for everybody.
I live a 1645 Applebury Drive here in Fayetteville. I would like to make
two points here tonight. One is that reading Waterman Orangebee's book,
he was what, the first person who rode all the way on the Butterfield Trail
He descnbes coming into Fayetteville in 1858. He describes it as a prairie
in the mountains. He describes the wide open spaces between the widely
spaced trees and he comments specifically that most of them are post oaks.
That is the way this forest was onginally back in 1858 and so I would say
Missy Lefler:
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that what we have is really a biological historic district. It is certainly
worth preserving and probably.ISshould be the
% very bare minimum that
should be considered for preservation."The second`point I would to make
is that I was on the committee that started this tree ordinance back in 1990.
We moved out of town before the ordinance was finished and so I was
involved in this back in the beginning. One of the comments that was
going on at that time was that companies like Wal Mart, and at the time
Wal Mart was out by where Steinman is now, and the concern was
whether not a big company like Wal Mart would follow the ordinance, and
go in and plant trees. That was a big concern about how these big
corporations would shy away from Fayetteville. I left the city and moved
to Farmington for a few years, so again I lost touch with the final draft of
the ordinance. But the year after we had these first meetings I was
involved with, I went to Phoenix and lo and behold, one of the things that
we toured while we were there in Phoenix was a Wal Mart parking lot.
Wal Mart does what most of the corporations do, just what they have to
do. They do what the ordinances say and do usually no more than the
ordinances say. And so, when you have an ordinance that, I think, the
corporations will abide by it and it behooves the city to stick with their
rules and regulations. Thank you.
I live at 1717 West Center here in Fayetteville. I grew up in Fayetteville
and I see some familiar faces up here. Trent, I use to come to your house
up the street and ride your ponies when we kids, Rusty and Misty. Bobby
use to come to our house and play with my older brother. And I always
liked Bobby. Of all my brothers friends, he was one that never hit me.
Mr. Austin, back when you were principal at Woodland Junior High, I was
sent to your office and you whipped me with a paddle.
Alderman Ron Austin: I believe that's true.
Missy Lefler:
Alderman Ron
Missy Lefler:
It is true. I still have a ring. But I forgive you.
Austin: I don't believe that's true. I believe the vice principal took care of that.
Well, I argued with you but I then went on and became a lawyer. I was
• whipped more for the arguing, but we'll talk about this another time.
Alderman Ron Austin: Yeah, me too.
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City Council Minutes
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Page 26
And I should have not called you that name. And I am sorry. Okay. I am
glad that Attorney Rose, who I didn't know until last week, but, I have a
great deal of respect for. The attorneys, as he indicated, we can get two in
a room and disagree vehemently but we can still have professional respect
for one another. I am glad he agrees that we can not pick and choose the
laws that we enforce The young lady that was up here earlier spoke about
speeding. That's right. I don't know about you all but the last time I got
pulled over, just once for speeding, I didn't try to say, "oh, I was going 30
miles an hour over but 1 cut it down to 10 miles an hour over, and that's
compromise." That's my interpretation. I didn't try that. Attorney Rose
does say that since the Landscape Administrator can interpret, a lot has
been said about interpretation and those that don't feel the 15% ought to
be stuck with, seem to be hanging their hats on interpretation. So 1 would
like to talk a minute about that As many of know I am an attorney,
although I teach business law at the University at the Walton College of
Business. Can the Commission and then the City Council interpret a city
ordinance? Well, first and I will keep my comments brief, even though I
am a lawyer. The city ordinance itself says, for commercial developments,
a tree preservation plan shall be submitted with the building permit for
approval by the Landscape Administrator. It doesn't say approval by
anyone else, just the Landscape Administrator. There shall be not land
disturbance or tree removal until the tree preservation plan has been
approved. Well, Attorney Rose points out that when his position on this is
if you appeal the Landscape Administrator's decision to the Planning
Commission, that they somehow the right to interpret the statues gone to
them and transferred to them, by some legal mechanism I'm not familiar
with. And then when you appeal to the City Council, they can interpret.
Well, there is a 1996 Arkansas Supreme Case, City of Lowell vs M&M
Mobile Home Park. In that case there is a discussion of the powers of
government. I remember from Civics which I learned from Woodland
Junior High, during your tenure that there is three branches of government.
There is executive, there is legislative, and there is judicial. And in this
case the courts says, "the power of governments are divided into three
separate branches of governments. The legislative power of state
government is vested in the general assembly, Arkansas State Legislature,
with the right of the initiative and referendum reserved to the people. The
general assembly can delegate the legislative power to enact ordinances to
municipal corporations. When a municipality acts in a Legislative
capacity, it exercises its power conferred upon it by the general assembly
and consequently, an act of a municipality is the coequal of an act of the
general assembly. So I think it's plain that the City Council has the same
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authority as the State Legislature. They are saying it is kind of the same
thing. Well, they are both legislative branches of the government. Well, it
is basic Civics that we all remember from junior high and high school that
the legislative branch of a government enacts laws, creates laws. It is the
judicial branch, the courts who interpret laws. So i have to respectfully
disagree with Mr. Rose, as lawyers tend to do, disagree with another, that
a legislative body such as the City Council can interpret a law. Once it
enacts a law, it can only enforce it but it cannot interpret it. That job is for
the courts. Another point I would like to point out is at the last City
Council meeting and I was sitting right here, I heard what got discussed
here before. It is not in the minutes what was said verbatim, but I
remember it the way, at least two of the alderman spoke up earlier
remembered it. When Mr. Rose was talking about how the business
developers were withdrawing their appeal to send it back to the Planning
Commission, they said, you said it was to conform with the ordinances,
not compromise. That was what was said. I remember it. And I am sure
it is on video tape. Those were the words. And think what the citizens,
and I know as a citizen, expected was that conformity not compromise.
Compromise, which tonight we are calling interpretation, we are using a
different word. It means the same thing, non -conformity. For my last
point, I would like to point out a different Arkansas case, Outdoor Graphic
vs City of Burlington, the 1996 case from the Eighth Federal Circuit
which is the Federal Court that you appeal Arkansas State cases to. It has
held that if a property owner purchases land subject to a city regulatory
ordinance, it may not then complain that' the ordinance is depriving the
owner of an economic use and the city's right to regulate the land use will
be upheld as constitutional. Now what I think has happened here is that
we have had the ordinance enacted since 1993, some developers came in,
they are saying, oh, this is economically hard on us and they have, or are
in the process to trying to persuade the powers that be that they don't have
to abide by the ordinance because of economic hardship. I don't think you
can talk interpretation. You can call it interpretation. You can call it
compromise. You can use whatever word you want but what they are
trying to do is not comply with the 15% canopy required by law. Thank
you.
y c•
Dan Cood9:I live in Fayetteville. I appreciate you allowing us to speak tonight.
Obviously folks in Fayetteville care abotit the trees and the character of the
• ' `city, and I think that 15% mininiuni isn't asking too much to be preserved
i 'for the whole city. Onething I would like to state is the same thing that I
just stated to the Planning Commission earlier is that as the first gentleman
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that spoke tonight said that we need to think outside the box. 1 think that
we have an excellent opportunity to do that in this particular case. Let's
say for example that the 15% minimum is preserved and that would be
about 4 % acres of this piece of land and that is roughly about a million
dollars worth of property at five dollars a square foot. The 4 ''/ acres of
trees cover would be preserved in perpetuity and would not be able to be
developed for buildings or commercial development at any time in the
future. So basically Argus, or Kohl's or whoever would actually own the
property, would be having the liability of 4 V acres of land out there that
somebody could hurt themselves on and sue them. They would be paying
property taxes on this 4 % acres. They would be having to pay money to
maintain this property and they wouldn't be getting the benefit out of it
that they should be because they don't, the design wouldn't be conducive
using this piece of land as it could be used. So if I were in your position
and had the ability, what I would do is ask them rethink this position,
maybe if you could send it back to the Planning Commission, maybe for
redesign, something that could be out, maybe
something along this line to where they could reestablish, redesign,
reconfigure the plan to where that island of trees, the 4 % acres, could be
preserved as in a park like setting and get the buildings built, the parking
lots designed and built, get the whole deal done, then give the land to the
City as a park. What that would do is take it off of their tax rolls. They
wouldn't be having to pay property tax on it. They would not be having to
maintain it. They would lose the liability, the legal liability of owning it
and someone hurting themselves on it and they would get an enormous
break by giving this to the City. They would be able to gain quite a bit in
tax incentives to that. So basically it would take land they can't use, it is a
liability, and it would turn it into land that they would be making money
off of that they don't own any more. It would be a good way to go about
this. You can't do this in every situation but this is an extreme
circumstance. The little park area could even be used then if the out lots
were redesigned where the restaurants they plan on putting there, could
actually front this park like area and take advantage of that. It would be a
nice place for people who wanted to go with their spouse to shop but they
didn't want to go inside. Generally, I know myself sometimes will sit out
in the parking lot and wait, and I would rather sit in a park and wait. I
think that would be good. It would of an incentive for me to go to Kohl's
if I knew I could sit on a park bench under a very nice tree rather than sit
in a car in a hot parking lot. There are a lot of reasons why we should
think outside of the box and look at this from a different direction. I
believe that the city can get what it wants, the citizens can get what it
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wants and Kohl's and Argus can get what they want I think everyone can
come out very far ahead if we start thinking in different terms than what
we do right now. Thank you very much.
Rick McKinney: Good evening. I live on Olive Street in Fayetteville. I appreciate your
patience in listening to all of this, and Kyle, your tenacity to bring up this
up to the Council. When this came to the Planning Commission in large
scale development, the plan was looked at, the roads were looked at, the
sewers were looked at, everything was looked at in the concept of how this
was going to be laid out and built. Now the sewers weren't compromised
to where you are only going to allow them to put it 80% of their sewer
lines. Your roads, as I recall,. this Council dedicated over a million dollars
worth of tax money to contribute to the road development in this
development. And I think the CMN Partnership should have a respect to
that towards our opinion in this tree ordinance. I don't think we need to
compromise this. Like it has been said earlier, the only thing I will repeat
is I think we need a greater percentage in our future developments. The
green space in the city is a commodity that is diminishing and I think that
we need to really stand up and send a message to the developers and the
commercial operations that want to come in to this city, and make sure
they respect our lives, our ordinances and our town This week end I took
my daughters to Siloam Springs to see the moving;wall, the Vietnam
Memorial I wanted them to understand that sacrifices are giving for
things that they never had anything to do with. I guess how I am going to
have to take them out around this grove of trees to have the same
understanding of what sacrifice is given for development in our
community. I am saying let's reduce that sacrifice and enforce the law.
Tom McKinney:
•
How are you all this evening? You are actually getting two McKinney's
in a row here which must be a real treat. My name is Tom McKinney. I
live out in West Fork, however I am speaking this evening as a
consulation chair for the Ozarks of the Sierra
Club representing the 200 members we have here in Fayetteville. I
appreciate you all again, being patient, letting everybody have their say
this evening. I will try not to rehash, re -discuss anything that has been
said here which I think folks have been very eloquent in their feelings.
What I do want to bring up is that I have made the Planning Commission
meetings, but the folks who are down here trying to put this Kohl store in,
I cannot think but that they never had any intention of even meeting any of
the city's requirements. At the Planning Commission I went to they were
complaining that the requirements were never clear. They were not told
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about the tree ordinance, how broad it was. They were not told about the
15% canopy requirement. They surely were not told what the definition of
a landmark tree was. It was almost like a dog ate my homework excuse.
That pretty much ceased when Tim Conklin held up the book of
ordinances and codes that everybody gets who does business with the City
of Fayetteville and in it were all the requirements they said they had never
seen before. That pretty much put that to rest. They also complained that
they had always heard the 15% canopy retention was done by replanting.
That was despite the fact that Miss Hesse sent out a letter January a year
ago, it has been fifteen months now, stating that under the tree ordinance,
the 15% canopy retention was going to be stnctly adhered to. Also, the
folks from Kohl's forgot the fact that under all the other 15% exceptions
that were done by re -planting, never have they had this number of
landmark trees involved in a development and never have they had this
kind of remnant habitat involved in a development. So, going from an
original of 3% retention, they finally, which in my opinion was grossly
violating the tree ordinance, compromised they felt on what was a 10 25%
retention of the existing canopy, that went from a gross violation of the
ordinance to a drastic violation of the ordinance. And that is not what I
would call a compromise So I would ask you all to up hold the 15%
retention requirement as the ordinance states. I can't see Kohl's claiming
financial hardship here. I have gotten on the web side and they are
expanding like gang busters all across the country. They are saying they
are putting in 40-45 stores. Last year their goal was 40-45 stores and 50
stores this year. I have never heard an explanation of how Kohl's handles
tree ordinances. The communities, if they have had to deal with a rare and
landmark ordinance, such as the one here in Fayetteville, if they have not
had to deal with one of those this is certainly not the example to set for
any future of communities that will have to deal with Kohl's. They have
deep pockets. They certainly can, I think, reasonably redesign their
development and still meet city ordinances. The great liberty statewide
newspaper, The Arkansas Democrat, even got into this little argument
here, and they came up, I thought with an very eloquent statement, I will
go ahead and close, and let the other folks speak. This was from their April
24'h editorial page, "the tree ordinance has set a minimum and it can be
met by a little more redesign work on Steele Crossing. Fear not, if the
shopping center's developers decide it is not worth the trouble, there will
be another development for that site soon enough. It is prime territory.
The rules and the ordinance are plain. The city just needs to stick to them
and make sure everybody else does too. Thank you all very much.
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Marquet Miguel: I am suppose to close in the morning on two condos on Lewis Street.
Maybe I will rethink it. I grew up in Ft. Smith. I call it a flat line city.
Towsend and Midland. Of course, we have our College Avenue. But I
wanted to keep growing in Fayetteville because of the spirit here and I am
concerned about that There are sometimes when I get really depressed
and I think maybe this is the attitude around here. Developers say, "go
ahead and make one more change;" a Clint Eastwood attitude. And I am
wondering about our public service. Are they saying the same thing too?
I hope not. Together our desire must be to mold Fayetteville into a
supportive, expression of who we are. For ourselves and our heirs. It
takes whatever trouble and effort and uphill it takes. It takes
whatever it takes. We are worth whatever it takes. Margaret Mead said,
"never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can
change the World. • Indeed,' it is the Only thing that' ever has". Who said
compromise the tree ordinance? Some things are too valuable to
r compromise or sell. This is not the mindless consumption collective here.
r Wm
e'will not be dssiilated.l We are evolution. We are change. We here,
by god. We are here to birth a stronger tree ordinance, to buy property and
put covenants on it, eco protection, whatever it takes. An old Arkansas
+ governor in 1906 whatever, expressed it this way, "it must be a source of
much shame and shuggarand ?? to Arkansas people for large corporations
to come in, take the resources of Arkansas without the people of Arkansas
benefitting". We are the people. You can't stop the people. We will keep
coming down here and pulling in the welcome mat for those not in
harmony with us and our greater visions. And as the winds of change
blow over Fayetteville together we will harness that change, that growth
and we will coax it into a breeze of loving, healing hope. Thank you.
Pete Heinzelmann:
I live on 1737 Applebury Drive. I believe that we are at a critical period
of history in Fayetteville. A period of very rapid change that this city has
never seen before and because of that rapid change the need for vision is
paramount. I think that we need to have a vision of our past, a vision of
the present and a vision of the future. In regard to this grove of trees, my
vision of the past are of the early settlers coming here, settling along Clear
Creek there. It must have been a beautiful place. You had the water to
water your cattle, a beautiful area. Those trees were living at that time,
probably. For whatever reason they are still living. They are still there. I
have walked through that grove. My vision of the present. It is not so
much the trees as it is the place. It is on a knoll. These huge, 80 some
100+ year trees still there, widely spaced, a beautiful park area beneath
them. An incredible place. Ron Austin and I were talking on the
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telephone not long ago about these kind of trees and about where they are
in Fayetteville As I understand, Agri Park is one of the places with a
similar park like setting. And Ron brought up Wilson Park which to me is
very similar to this grove of trees. Wilson Park speaks for itself for this
community. To me, this grove of trees is a Wilson Park in our future. My
vision of the future is cloudy. One vision is that grove is gone. Those
ancient trees, that were here when those early settlers were here, are gone.
And what is there in its place? Bricks, metal building with a 30 year life
expectancy, probably. Asphalt parking Tots all over the place. A clear
creek that may be ruined forever. My other vision, which I hope comes
about, is that grove is still there. Those trees will still be there for future
residents even after we are gone. There is something next to the grove that
is in harmony with the grove, businesses, offices, whatever. But keeping
that grove as the valuable thing that it is. It means a lot to this community,
to preserve something of such great value. Thank you.
Richard Maynard: 1717 North Sang Avenue. Just something the gentleman said before me I
wasn't intending to say. Before this whole thing started I have to confess I
really didn't think that much about trees one way or the other. I liked
having them around. I would rather have more than less of them But I
will say during this whole thing thinking about something that has been
around since my grandparents, my great grandparents age, and has
withstood everything God and nature could throw at it, until now, of
course, it does give you pause. I think that should have been an argument
strong enough but obviously it wasn't. Unlike a lot of you, I am not from
here. I have been here only about six years and I realize I don't have the
deep roots that a lot of folks here do and the great love for this community.
I like this community a lot. But I keep hearing everybody talk about the
uniqueness of this city and I am here to tell you I am not sure everyone
really understands that. For the first 43 years of my life I lived in both
coasts. I lived up North. I have lived in a lot of different places. This is
truly unique. I am not sure that folks really realize how unique. I have
obviously have not been everywhere and I am sure there are places just as
beautiful and just as nice as this city, personally I have not seen them. I
haven't seen them. And only being here six years gives me a little bit of
an outsiders perspective, and probably if I live here the rest of my life I
will always feel a little bit like that. And the only thing I can say is that
when I watch what has happened here these six years, it is kind of sad to
watch It doesn't pain me as much as it does other people. But it is sad to
watch But I am getting off on something else. What I really want to talk
about here was intent. It is something that Kyle had said about the intent
�i 3
Colene Gaston:
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and I did try to read that tree ordinance, believe it of- not, and I•can't say I
understood all of it. But the intent certainly, I didn't find any ambiguity in
the intent of that at all And as I understand it, this was something you all
decided collectively among yourselves about eight years ago. It seems
like the intent was clearly there. But another thing about intent, whatever
it meant, the one thing I am sure it did not mean was 3% preservation or
2% preservation or almost no percent preservation. And that is the intent
that I would, something that Tom McKinney had mentioned, when these
folks came in here and decided that they wanted to interpret the ordinance
their way. And it seems to me that if they were not clear about this should
be interpreted, there were certainly clear routes they could have taken to
find out but they chose to do it the way that they wanted to do it. And I
think intent speaks for something, so I am kind of wondering why we are
giving these folks this kind of a break. And this compromise is one thing
that brought me up here tonight and got me involved with this. I have to
say this compromise that I saw was the silliest thing I have ever seen in
my life. An existing ordinance and an existing agreement that you all
decided amongst yourselves and to start your compromising from their
position. If there was no ordinance that would make sense. But it almost
seems like people who took pride in themselves that you got 10% , that
you won something. You didn't. You lost a third of your ordinance. And
if you stay up, please, please, and if you stay with this, I do think, I don't
know if Ms. Lefler is right or not on whether you have the authority to
interpret this law, if she is right then we have really been wasting
everybody's time. But if you do have it then this 10% is going to be the
new ordinance. I have no doubt in my mind that is what will happen. And
granting that there is a difference of interpretation, that you did have an
interpretation before Miss Hesse came in, obviously it was a weaker
interpretation of the one that she tried to enforce this time. So I don't
understand if you are in doubt why you would chose the weaker
interpretation. Thank you.
My address is 3270 Rom Orchard Road. And I also have business in
Fayetteville at 2949 North Point Circle. In Mr. Rose's introductory
remarks he stated that the tree ordinance was open to interpretation, that
it's application involved discretion. And I think he is correct as to some
provisions of the ordinance. Mr. Russell also stated that there could be
varying interpretations of the ordinance. I don't think, however, that is at
all correct as to Section 167.05C. Do you have the ordinances in front of
you? If you would look at this section of the ordinance, this is the
minimum canopy requirement., It states, "in all-new subdivisions, large.,
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scale developments and commercial developments trees shall be preserved
as outlined below under the percent minimum canopy". If you read
through the chart you get to C2 Thorough Fare Commercial and the
percentage is 15%. That is the entirety of this section. There is absolutely
not exceptions created in it. If you look back to the beginning of Section
167.05 there are no exceptions created There is some discretion when
you are addressing rare and landmark trees. But that discretion does not
apply to this section. Therefore, I say there is not debate on this issue. It
is the law and you as the City Council should up hold it. This should not
go to the courts. We should not have Fayetteville in court again, arguing
with its own citizens. The City Council should take a strong position to up
hold the law as it is wntten and it that should send a clear message so that
there would need not be any court battles on this issue. Thank you.
Kit Willliams: Good Evening. I live on Knorr Road on Mt. Sequayah. I would like to
thank all of you for your patience that you have demonstrated here tonight
listening to all of these fine citizens give you their impression and their
interpretation and their opinions on this issue. I would also like to thank
Alderman Kyle Russell for bringing this issue before Fayetteville's elected
leaders. For issues of such obvious community interest, it is essential that
you are elected leaders, listen to and consider the views and opinions of
your constituents. So I thank Kyle for taking a little bit of the heat to
make our democracy accountable. I served as an alderman in 1993 along
with Heather Daniel. And along with Alderman Daniel, I supported and
voted for the tree preservation ordinance. I agree with our Landscape
Administrator, our current Landscape Administrator, that this ordinance
was intended to preserve existing trees, existing mature trees when
practical and not just replace them with saplings. I think that has been a
good step in the right direction. I also think that our Landscape
Administrator and Planning Commission were correct in rejecting the first
proposal. I will leave to your judgement tonight whether they were right
in accepting a much improved proposal by Kohl's. Whether that has gone
far enough that is a difficult decision for you all to make. However, there
is larger issue here, one that led originally to the creation of the tree
preservation ordinance and our other development ordinances that we
worked on to try the quality of life in Fayetteville. And that issue is the
loss or destruction of much of the natural beauty of Fayetteville because of
our rapid growth. And a lot of the beauty being trees that we all value. I
remember there was as much controversy, believe it or not, and concem
when a very divided City Council voted to rezone this 300 acres of pasture
to commercial. As much as we have heard here tonight, now I supported
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and was one of the five alderman who voted to rezone this 300 acres.
Obviously I knew at the time, as the other five aldermen who voted for us
did that Fayetteville was losing a beautiful rural setting exchanging it for
continued growth and health in our Northwest Arkansas Mall area which
we all must remember is the primary revenue generator for our city. Now
a few weeks ago it was reported in the paper that Mayor Hanna presented,
what I believe to be a visionary idea help offset the loss of this beautiful
rural land. 1 wish I had come up this idea myself when we faced that
divisive and difficult vote to rezone this pasture and woodland. At that
point the Mayor suggested that we take half of the new sales tax that we
generated by the new businesses on these lots during their first year of
operation, and invest it to purchase or save urban forests in Fayetteville.
They had projected $800,000.00 in new sales tax revenue the first year.
New sales tax revenue. And if that is correct this would generate a lot of
money. Tonight I would ask the City Council to consider to follow and
even expand on Mayor Hanna's suggestion. I would suggest for your
consideration that we designate 10% of the new sales tax generated for the
next decade to a program of buying or otherwise protecting urban forests
in Fayetteville. And I propose that this 10% of new sales tax revenue be a
applied, not only for these two lots that we are thinking about tonight, but
for each and every business developed on all the lots within this entire 300
acre business park. Although this would only reduce the new sales tax
revenue for the general government operations by 10% for the next
decade, the funds generated could save or reserve mature trees in urban
forests all over Fayetteville forever. The Tree and Landscape Committee
could recommend to the City Council which woods were most deserving
and cost effective to permanently save. Often only the developmental
rights would need to be purchased saving money and leaving the protected
woodland or pastureland in the owners continued stewardship. Under this
program we could save the woods still standing down the hill from
Leverett Elementary and numerous other locations where wood lots should
be protected from any development where not 15% but a 100% of the trees
could be preserved. You can do it. This I believe is an historic
opportunity to forever preserve many, many tress and urban forests all
r over Fayetteville and it will only cost us as a city one tenth of the new tax
revenue generated by each new store for its first decade of business in this`
300 acre development. This is a legacy that we can leave our children and
grandchildren forever. I thank Mayor Hanna for initially suggesting such
a:program and I•hope you as our City Council seriously considers it and
will even expand this idea over the ehtire'300 acre park. I don't think
, anything else we can do here tonight would have such a lasting and
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Cary Arsaga:
Randy Zurcher:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 36
beneficial affect on our city. I thank you for all your hard work because I
know what it is like up there.
Good evening. I live at 16 West Maple and I would like to second Kit
Williams proposal. I think it truly is visionary and would solve some of
these problems we are now facing. I believe this is a good debate our
community is having right now. The question at hand is do we want to
interpret this ordinance in a strict fashion or do we want to maintain some
flexibility? Flexibility is a good tool to have but it takes wisdom to know
when to be firm and when to be flexible My experience in this area,
knowing when to be firm and when to be flexibly comes from my years of
expenence when I was a junior high math teacher. When I first entered
the profession, I thought I would set my classroom standards in the
flexible manner rather than setting firm standards. I thought this would
show good will towards the students Unfortunately for me my students
did not perceive this as a good will move on my part and they took every
opportunity to question me on this, as I am sure you know, Ron Austin.
What I am saying is that since my rules weren't fixed, they were never
sure what the boundaries and limits were, everything was negotiable. It
was impossible to manage my class. I quickly learned I had to set firm
rules and to stick to them. Once I did that I was able to teach. I believe
for the long term benefit of Fayetteville is far wiser to let developers know
exactly what our minimum standards are so that they can make an
intelligent decision on whether they want to do business here. I don't
think this mean spirited or anti -development. I think it is just good
business. It will let them know what to expect from us. It can only be
confusing and frustrating to developers to continually have the height of
the bar changed as they go through this process, plus it is far easier to
enforce an ordinance fairly and equally if we set a minimum standard and
stick to it. Fayetteville is an economically strong and attractive
community. Businesses want to be here. It is our charge to let them know
what we expect of them. Protecting 15% of our tree canopy surely isn't an
overly restrictive ordinance. I believe in Columbia, Missouri, they require
25% of the tree canopy to be saved. If we set our standards and are firm in
our commitment to enforce them, then we can attract good developments,
remain economically strong and at the same time protect some of our
natural beauty. That would truly be a win-win situation. Thank you.
I will make every effort to keep this bnef. I live a 216 West Spring,
Downtown Fayetteville, Ward 2, but I do a lot of my work in Benton
County. When I moved to that office in Bentonville, I went with a lot of
Jim Crider:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 37
prejudices against Benton County, most of which I have lost. For one
thing they do not have a tree ordinance as far as I know anywhere in
Benton County, even Siloam Springs where they have the beautiful parks
right downtown. I don't believe they have a tree ordinance and I didn't
expect people to be, I guess, advanced about trees, or to have the love that
people have for trees down here in Fayetteville and in Washington
County. I have experienced something completely different from that. As
you may know I have been making a little bit of TV down at Community
Access about this issue. It has been a show that has grown in time and as
the issue went on, and I would encourage everybody to watch it, a little
plug there. I talked to a lot of people about this at the Square and I talked
to a lot of people at the Mall before we were asked to leave. And at
Hastings Record Store. I felt I got a pretty good of people
in Fayetteville saying, "Keep the trees. Yes, we want to keep the trees.
Yes, natural beauty is the reason we come up from Ft. Smith, Little Rock,
come down from Springdale because we enjoy the natural beauty here. I
found the same thing around the office in Bentonville. I bring up this,
issue and they say, -"What is the problem? Save:those trees! Those trees '.
have been there longer than anybody else; any person living here today. A
lot of those trees have been here longer than• we have." t When they found
out that we had a tree ordinance they were amazed, and said, If you have
that stuff protected, why don't they just enforce the'ordinanee?" I wasn't
able to give them an answer to that, not one I would have been proud of.
So what I am asking you tonight to do is make us proud, or keep us proud
to be in Washington County, and keep us proud to be in Fayetteville. And
please over turn this Planning Commission decision. Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. I am Director of
Economic Development with the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce.
And I might add that I am a native of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and very
proud of it. And in particular I am proud that I can go out and promote the
future economic development of this community. I grew up 2 '/z blocks,
the first ten years of my life, 2 '// blocks from where'I stand right now. I
stated this earlier at another meeting that I had a privileged as a kid of
climbing most of the trees of the downtown, much to the of
a lot of owners. But I did. And I saw the price of progress, too, along
• College Avenue, where a number of my favorite climbing trees were
removed and it was a big disappointment because it was for progress and
as a child I did not understand that. I think back, and there was not a
replacement program for the canopy as there is today. But I am here to
voice support for this project because it does have a replacement attached
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957
Donna Porter:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 38
to it. Indeed, it has not been mentioned this evening, but there is actually a
net gain on the overall canopy by this program. I think it is commendable
that the Argus Company and it's development, the Steele Crossing project,
is going to provide for replacement. I also want to commend the Planning
Commission who asked all the painful questions, all through from the time
that they first declined this project, up until they finally approved it It
was an agonizing process, even for me because I did a lot of bench time
during that time, and having to sit through it and listen. It was long. It
was arduous. I went behind them, out to the site and walked the land. It is
truly a beautiful site and I think that the plan that they have arrived at is
really commendable, a joint agreement. It is for progress. It is good. It is
a workable project I think the elements that most impressed me about this
project is the fact that it is done in good faith by a commission appointed
by you and it was filled chock full with common sense and that, whenever
you start considering the law, absolutely, there are areas that you just have
to compromise sometime. It has to be done for the sake of progress, for
the future of this community and to keep it to the standard that I aspire, I
am really in favor of the trees. Like I said, I have a lot of climbing time as
a child in that. It brings back fond memories. So on behalf of the
Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, I want to encourage you to approve
this project. They have gone through no less than fourteen changes to get
to this compromise. Thank you.
1030 East Huntsville. I am not going to come here and repeat everything
that has been said. But I would like to bring up one issue that I do not
think has been addressed. Obviously I am for keeping as many as trees as
possible for the health of our environment, for the beauty of our city but if
this is an issue that is of economics, if this is basically an economic issue
to some of you and it is about dollars, it is about money Has anybody
really put a dollar value on those trees? It is kind of absurd, but I looked
through a lot of landscape industry magazines and I see where big
corporations come in and build and there is a company, I believe in
Florida, that specifically transplants large trees, we are talking 16,18, 24
inch diameter trees, and the price tag on that is pretty hefty. It is probably
somewhere, I am sorry I don't have the actual facts and figures, but it is
between $10-50,000.00 to replace a 24 inch caliber tree. If this is about
money what would it take for us to replace those trees? I mean, I kind of
see it to teanng down a very beautiful historic house that
was built with fine architecture, fine woodworking, and trying to replace it
in today's dollars. It is not replaceable. So let's not tear these trees down
and you know, come back and try to replace them because they are just not
John Deane:.
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 39
replaceable. If it is about money, let's get a dollar figure on them, what
the value of these trees are really are..I think if you put pen to paper you
would be amazed to what that figure is going to come out to. Thank you.
I reside at 3144 Kensington Court. All I know about this matter is what I
read in the newspaper. I don't know the landowners. I don't know the
developers. But I would like to cover a couple of points I read that where
you should support this ordinance, 15% because you supported the sign
ordinance. The sign ordinance is totally different. It applies equally to
everybody and that's all. Absolutely equally. It does not deprive anyone
of the use of his property. -There are totally different. This ordinance, the
sign ordinance is a definitive ordinance. This ordinance is of one those
maybe ordinances. *Mr: Russell referred us:to Section 167.01I, but he
missed the top where it says, "rn'order to accomplish where possible,
where possible." Then you go on to 167.05A, and it talks about the
3 t proposed development, "should be designed to maximize." That is a
'maybe word. You tell your child, "CanI.go to the movie? Oh, I don't
think you should." Then you are in for an argument. If the Council
desires something else;theri amend it: Change the should to shall: The
landmark trees, where it talks about the rare and landmark trees, it also
uses the word shall, or should, be pursued in order to save them. Now, the
ordinance did not prohibit trees from being removed. The ordinance does
not prohibit replacement trees. Under 167.05B6, the question is left to the
Landscape Administrator, as the property is developed to determine there
is no reasonable way to develop the property, and that is where the rub
comes. If the developer needs a 150,000 square foot building, is that
reasonable? And if you have to cut down some trees. Sure he could go
out and put a 10 by 10 foot building there and you can keep all of them.
What does the Landscape person use a criteria under the reasonable. That
is the only issue here. If you follow the law and support the ordinance, she
has made her decision, the Planning Commission followed it and all you
got to do is as the sign said outside is follow the law. She has done it.
The change thing about this ordinance is, and I am sure it could be done,
and the Council could draw it, to say that the 15% canopy must stay. Mr.
Russell knows that you have gotta do the whole ordinance. He told you
that this section applies to reasonable. He said that if you had a mountain
and all you had was some land with trees, then we would have to make
allowance for that, so he knows the reasonable section applies. He just
told you. He doesn't agree in this case that it was reasonable. But as I say
again if Council thinks he can draw an ordinance that can pass
constitutional muster by saying we are going to take 15% of your property,
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Emily Williams:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 40
then do it. If you had 300 acres of rare trees and you came in, 45 acres is
gone. It's gone! What's it worth'? I don't know. And if the guy next to
you had 300 bare acres, he wouldn't even have to plant a twig. That's what
the ordinance says. You don't have to do anything. The percent minimum
canopy requirements shall not require the planting of trees to achieve the
minimum unless trees were previously remove. So if you had 300 bare
acres, you would have to do nothing. If you had 400 acres of rare trees,
you lose 45 acres. I don't know if that is constitutional but maybe Council
can help you with it. This is a tough ordinance. It is a negotiating
ordinance. The only thing that bothers me, and someone brought it up,
when we were throwing out that million dollars a year ago, I think
somebody should have whispered in somebody's ear and said there is 4 '/2
acres of trees out there, why don't we get them to throw it in? And you
would have already had the trees, no doubt in my mind. But all the
Council and the Planning Commission and the Staff never thought of that
little acreage over there that they would have been glad to give you to get
that million dollars, and we wouldn't be here today. All I am saying is
that if you follow the ordinance, is to follow it. She has made her
decision. If you don't like it, if you got some reason, I don't know what
her reasoning was, maybe she got her arm twisted, I don't know, but
whatever the reason is, she has made her decision and that is what you do.
You make the decision. If you had a mountain and only trees were on the
ground that you could develop, and she made the decision, then it would
be an unanimous vote, I suppose. Thank you.
I live a 288 Knorr. I was just going to listen. I wasn't planning to talk and
I got up here and realized I looked like a lumberjack. I'm not. I just
wanted to respond to two things that I heard. One is the comment that the
papers made that I heard here tonight that the developers had gone back
fourteen times and amended this. And my response to that is they should
have had to do that because they should have read the ordinance and they
should have followed our ordinances in the first place. We don't need to
feel sorry for them because they had to make these amendments because
somebody didn't do their job. My second point is common sense. We are
a city with, I believe, the last figure just last week in the paper was 2.3%
unemployment. We are one of the fastest growing areas in the nation. If
we can't, now, when we are in such a good position, set terms and ask
people to help us keep this place, some place that we want to live, some
place that we don't have to walk out and have it look like 71B, now is the
time for us to do it. Not ten years from now when things slow down.
When we have a good economic basis for making decisions, then we can
Greg Sterling:
City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 41
ask people to give a little more. Thank you.
I live at 536 Storer Avenue, one block North of the University campus
There have been many eloquent words about saving trees. I think just
about everyone sitting here likes trees. You are the appellate court here
and you are making law. Don't change our tree ordinance, over turn the
Planning Commission's vote. I want to thank Kyle Russell for putting us
through this.
Mayor Hanna asked if there was anyone else for public comment.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Kirk Rankin: I am with Argus Properties, the developer of
the shopping center. Without going through all of the history of the whole wet mule of things
that we have been through on this, I think everybody is aware of that. But there are several
things that are somewhat distorted. The ordinance has many sections and we are looking at
under the appeal, one section. The ordinance does provide for replacement canopy. The City has
used replacement canopy time and time again since the ordinance was enacted and that is what
we are seeking along the same lines. We have amended the plan. I think everybody is aware of
that. But I think there are a couple of items that need to be brought out. Our plan does preserve
10.25, 10.29 per cent of the total site of the existing canopy. We are saving 44% of the total
canopy on the site. It is not like we are bulldozing the whole thing there. Somebody has
mentioned trees. On that site today there are about 200 trees. In the area that we are saving there
are 91 trees. Now what we have shown on the plans has been the rare trees. We were required to
show the rare trees. We have showed them: But in that three acres that we are preserving, there
are 91 trees. We are planting an additional 349 trees, so we are well over in terms of, when we
are done with this project, there will be more trees than exist today. Many of the trees, the
mature trees, that have the age on them, the twenty-seven of those that we are saving, I think by
definition of mature means they are not necessarily as vigorous as they once were. While we are
preserving those and the new trees that we are replacing, the new trees going on site, and as well
as the young trees that are in the preserved area, are vigorous, will be vigorous, and enable us to
move forward over time with this project producing and setting a standard that heretofore has not
been met in the city. I think that there has been discussions that all of a sudden this project sets
new standards in terms of destroying canopy. On the other hand, I think you can look at it as this
project sets new standards at preserving canopy that have not heretofore been preserved in any of
the other commercial developments and retail developments of this scale around the city. We are
breaking new ground. We have done that. We have worked diligently with the Staff, the
Planning Commission, revising plans. Even the day we went to the Planning Commission that
morning we were out on the site with Subdivision Committee, took their comments, went back
that afternoon and made additional revisions to save some additional trees. We have worked
within the framework provided us by the City. We are not asking that, but we are asking for the
ordinance to be upheld and the ordinance provides for preservation. The ordinance also provides
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 42
for replacement and we are doing that. What we end up with is a combination of the saving, the
preservation and the replacement canopy, the way those are measured by the ordinance, we end
up with 24% of the site in preserved and replacement canopy. I think that level is, for this type
of project, far and obviously exceeds the 15% of the land area by significant percentage. It is not
something we are just scraping by with some sort of minimums. We are far exceeding that and I
believe we are setting the standard, raising the standards from what has been done under this
existing ordinance. Thank you. I am also going to have Jack Butt address some of the legal
issues because he is more competent that I am.
Thank you, Kirk. Mayor, members of the Council, I am Jack Butt. I practice law and live in
Fayetteville. 1 am one of Tom McKinney's 200 Sierra Club members of this area. The last time
I addressed a tree ordinance in the City of Fayetteville, it was in 1986. I was asked by, I believe,
the Landscape Subdivision of the Planning Commission to draft a tree ordinance for Fayetteville.
It was to my knowledge the first effort ever made to do that. I volunteered to do it for free. I put
probably thirty hours in it, which was worth to me at that time $2-4,000.00 and I brought it in
and I presented it to the Landscape Committee. I was literally eaten alive by developers,
business people, Chamber of Commerce representatives there, and I want to know where were
you all then? I could have used the support. I have been a staunch advocate of the tree
ordinance. I applauded when it passed. I am for it now It was under some trepidation that I
took this engagement representing a developer involving an interpretation of the tree ordinance.
And before I took the engagement I studied the underlying facts. I studied the law and I reached
the conclusion that I didn't need to take this client, I have enough clients that not only are they
right legally but this is the nght thing politically and morally and quality of life for Fayetteville.
But all of those issues have been argued in great extent except the legal issue and I want to tum
directly to that because that is what my client is paying me to present on this thing. First of all,
when this ordinance was adopted in 1992, it goes back to legislative history and how should we
interpret an uncertain part of this ordinance. My ordinance wasn't ambiguous but it has been lost
in the smoke of time unfortunately. The person that did the major part of drafting in this
ordinance is Jerry Rose, and I think that if he were asked directly "did you understand that you
can take replacement canopy and under certain circumstances, swap it out. I mean, can you take
original canopy, remove it and replace it with replacement canopy." I think that is the way he
understood the ordinance and what he understood his instructions to be when he wrote it. And
indeed, he has told you tomght, that he has interpreted that again and again and again throughout
the years as the proper way to interpret it. They have allowed as little as 0 percent of the original
canopy to remain when the developer came in with the ordinance As recently as 1998
Washington Regional was allowed to reduce the original canopy all the way down to 8% and
then build it back up to the required amount. That is the way the law was written, at least that is
the way the lawyer that helped write the law said he thought he was writing it. That is the way
the law has been interpreted and that is what my client came to when he was trying to figure out
what to do about it. Now, there are a couple of things that aren't in, I will discuss the ordinance,
but what is surprising to me is what is missing. First of all, Kyle Russell notes that perhaps in
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 43
extreme circumstances, there ought to be an exception to allow you to reduce canopy below 15%.
You know, the word extreme isn't in this ordinance In fact the ordinance is surprisingly lacking
in any definition of when you can replace original canopy with replacement canopy. And if you
read the ordinance it clearly contemplates that you can and should do that. And I would call your
attention, I think you have it before you there, Section 167.05, and I believe either Missy Lefler
or Colene read a sentence there but they didn't read the whole law. I will read the sentence they
read. It is at Sec�ion C of 167.05, and it says, "In all new subdivisions, large scale developments
and commercial developments trees shall be preserved as outlined below." And indeed, there is a
15% requirement. But subparagraph 1 under there, and I presume that read the entire paragraph
before you decide what it said. It goes on to say in the second sentence, "The percent minimum
canopy requirement shall not require the planting of trees to achieve the minimum, unless trees
were previously removed." Well, what trees could you conceivably be removing if they weren't
part of the original canopy? Now there is a double intent there because obviously if you have
only got an 8% canopy, you are not required to plant up to 15, but by the same token, it says,
"shall not require the planting of trees to achieve the minimum, unless trees were previously
removed." Trees or canopy? And then you skip on down to Section E, entitled Replacement
Canopy, "In the event a tree cannot be preserved as required," I mean it, the ordinance notes that
it is required that you preserve a placement canopy, but if you can't, then tree replacements to be
determined by the Landscape Administrator my be required in leu of the tree designated for
preservation. I don't see how it could be much more clear. Mr. Rose, I think, has no doubt in his •
mind as the elected paid City Attorney that this is the correct, proper definition that has never
been challenged over maybe of dozens of times until this particular thing. I think the solution is
to amend the ordinance and I will get to that in a minute. But be that as it may, I mean, it gives
me some joy to think that even if the tree advocates, if you will, I like to think of myself as a tree
advocate, but even if they lose here, there will be full acres, three football fields, 10% of a thirty
acre development in original old growth trees And with the trees the developer is going to plant
at his own expense, there will be almost 25% canopy, 7 '/z acres at $200-300,000 an acre planted
with trees, and the ones we plant today are more likely to be here when my grandchildren are
here, than the ones that we leave today. So I see a significant social benefit to a replacement
canopy, 7 '/I acres planted in trees. In 1986 I literally got shouted out of the room for suggesting
that we have a tree ordinance. I think it is wonderful no matter who wins this debate. But let me
go back to the interpretation and tell why I really think the resolution adopted by the Planning
Commission should be adopted. First of all if a city puts restrictions on property that are so tight
that the property owner cannot use it for his profit that is just as though you took the property
away, and under the Constitution that is called denial of due process. You have deprived the
property owner of the benefit of his property. And I think Mr. Rose will tell you if you ask him
that the reason he drafted replacement canopy in here and the reason there is a reason for
exception, if you had said as you could have, "there shall be no exceptions there." If you have
canopy, original canopy, 15% must be preserved, no exceptions. First of all the ordinance
doesn't say that, which I think is significant. In fact it has a provision for when you do replace
the canopy, but if it had said that, that means that if you bought the theoretical piece of property
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City Council Minutes
May 2, 2000
Page 44
where 85% is in flood plane or slope or in various boundaries or easements, where you can't
grow, the City has said to you, you may have bought that property for a million dollars, but you
cannot build on it. You can't build a parking lot on it. You can't build a store. You can't build a
house. You can't build an apartment complex. We are taking away that property from you. And
I think that Mr. Rose will tell you that is denial of due process. The property owner has lost the
benefit of his bargain. And I think that this statute, if this Council interprets it that way is subject
to Constitutional attack. Now, secondly, you have a second theory that the law cannot be
arbitrarily and unreasonably applied. Arbitrary and capricious. That is also considered to be a
denial of due process. You can't take a law and come up with an interpretation that is so crazy
that nobody would buy it. Well, we have a law here that the City Attorney who wrote said, it is
clear to me how it is being interpreted, and he has told all the Planning Commissions, the
Landscape Committees, the Landscape Administrators over the years, it is clear to me how it
ought to be interpreted. And they have all gone along with that interpretation and nobody has
challenged it and now after eight or seven years, we have an interpretation that nobody has ever
thought of before. That gives somebody a real ground to say that this law is being applied
arbitrarily and capriciously. So now we have two Constitutional attacks on the law. You know
what scares me to death is a citizen more than an advocate is that if somebody goes to court on
this, this ain't a great tree ordinance. You know what is missing, it has no requirement that the
developers keep the trees on there. If all of these trees die in two years, Kohl doesn't have to do
anything. That's terrible! You guys need to fix it. I am all for it. Okay, this thing has
ambiguities, we know about that. You guys need to fix it. I am all for it. I'll help it. This is a
whole lot better than if we go to court and it gets thrown out because then Fayetteville doesn't
have a tree ordinance. And if Fayetteville doesn't have a tree ordinance, we are going to have a
real political battle to get any kind of tree ordinance back into this city. Everybody is for quality
of life but the developers are saying, we like jobs, we like full employment, we like our schools
and parks and hospitals paid for, and the people that are more tree advocates say, don't cut the
trees at any cost, trees are everything. And that is a fair debate but it happens again before this
City Council we are not going to have a tree ordinance for a year or two or five, and we need a
tree ordinance. This ordinance is weak and perhaps ambiguous, but I think the right thing to do
and I think the legal thing to do, is that you say the Planning Commission did right, and then I
think you sharpen your pencils, you go back to your committees, you do your homework and we
fix this up, and we make provisions to preserve the trees that are there to keep up and heal and
replace the old trees, and I think we clear up this ambiguity and say when and when you can't
have a replacement canopy. I don't think it is ambiguous. I don't know why the ordinance
would discuss, would say the percent minimum canopy requirement shall not require the planting
of trees to achieve the minimum unless trees were previously cut. But if there is an ambiguity
there let's fix it up. And if what you really mean to say is you shall never, ever, ever, ever, ever
cut less than the canopy, say that. 15% - no trees shall ever, ever, ever be cut below that. Then
we won't have any problems. But I think the right thing for the Council to do and the legal
thing, which is why I am here arguing as a lawyer, is to say, tough question, a lot of issues, let's
fix it, but on this case we are facing Constitutional challenge to this law. Let's not risk our tree
ordinance until we get a better one in place. Thank you very much.
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City Council Minutes
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Missy Lefler, from the audience said she was accused of reading part of a paragraph and leaving
the rest out. She stated," 1 want to say it for the record. I was misquoted. I read out of a
completely different paragraph of the ordinance.
Mayor Hanna said that the Council had heard a lot of good comments. After one more speaker,
the discussion from the audience would conclude.
Patty Mitchell:
1768 N. Woolsey. 1 also have a business at that address. I am amazed that
we are sitting here and I over and over again hear people are in favor of
maintaining the trees that are there. I beg you to keep 15%, the minimum
required. When I first read about the issues in the paper, I was given hope
because the tree canopy was described as being rare possibly, and then
falling under that particular ordinance. And that issue seemed to have
dropped out of discussion completely. So where as we were first hearing
that the 15% canopy was in jeopaidy,°we then hear that we may be able to
save even more than 15% of that tree canopy of the rareness of the trees 44
and the size of the trees. I really come with more questions than I do
hearing answers. And I hate that.+Over and over again 'citizens who want
•
the tree canopy preserved have to beg you to come up to the minimum
standards rather than ask you for something much greaterthan the
minimum standards and to preserve a'largef section of these trees. That
really was my main concerns is what happened in the shuffle and the legal
concerns have been addressed by two different legal attorneys and it seems
like both of them brought up questions that are completely opposite from
each other. It makes me afraid that if we listen vs. the other that this will
be, the decision will be made in favor of not saving the tree canopy before
the real legal issues can be researched even further to see which ones are
really in jeopardy and what problems are in jeopardy of occurring, should
it go to courts or what are the underlying and the real legal issue.
Anyway, what I am asking is please consider over turning the decision and
• some of the ideas that were given and how to make that possible have been
presented to you. It is not an either or, you have lots of room to move here
and make something successful for the citizens as well as the developers.
•
Alderman Kyle Russell said in a response to a couple of legal arguments made by Jack Butt," I
never have said that you can never, ever, ever go below the minimum canopy requirement. I do
believe the ordinance clearly contemplates the use of replacements in some cases. And in fact
the ordinance says, "when you are allowed to replace." It says, "in the event a tree cannot be
preserved as required, tree replacements may be required in leu of the tree designated for
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preservation." I don't believe this is a situation where the trees cannot be preserved as required.
I am having trouble seeing why the 15% minimum cannot be preserved as required And I would
welcome the developer or attorney to explain why in this case that 15% minimum cannot be
preserved as required. I agree that provision was put in there to avoid a fifth amendment takings
issue, but I don't think this is a fifth amendment, this creates a fifth amendment problem if we
require 15% preservation and leave the other 85% of the land to be developed. I think the
developer, I think many developers around the country would love to come in here and try to
make a profit on that and would be very successful. So I believe the trees can be preserved as
required in this case, and therefore replacements are not, should not be allowed under the
ordinance, are not allowed the way the ordinance is written. And that is what I based my appeal
on, and obviously you all have a different interpretation of that ordinance. And that's fine. But
before you go on I do have a few questions for Miss Hesse if she is still here."
Alderman Ron Austin asked that before Alderman Russell asked Miss Hesse his questions, could
he ask a question. Alderman Austin asked Mr. Rose if Alderman Russell was making his
appeal now or was the Council just hearing background information to use in deciding whether
to hear his appeal. Jerry Rose answered Alderman Austin that they were hearing the appeal.
Alderman Ron Austin said that the Council was hearing the appeal, so there was to be no
discussion of whether this Council would.. They would hear the appeal.
Mr. Jerry Rose answered Alderman Austin, "yes, sir."
Alderman Ron Austin said he wanted to be sure he understood.
Mr. Jerry Rose said it use to be in our ordinances, but it was removed when the UDO was
adopted.
Alderman Ron Austin said, "thank you."
Alderman Kyle Russell said his first question for Miss Hesse as had been stated up here a couple
of times as well as at Agenda Session, it appears to many of us, including myself while I was
watching the Planning Commission meeting on television, that you approved this plan or said it
was reasonable. I haven't looked through the minutes yet so I don't know exactly what words
you used, even though it only preserves 10.3%, even though you had originally said you wanted
15% , and I was wondering if you could explain that.
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, said thank you. She would love to explain that. Back in
February 22"" this project was submitted to the City. I received that a few days later and that
original submmittal showed a preservation of less than 1% with an existing tree canopy of over
22%. During our review process I informed the engineer that was not acceptable, that did not
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meet our ordinance. Prior to the Planning Commission he did bring back another plan that
showed a 2% or close to a 2% preservation This is the 2% of the entire site in preserving of the
existing tree canopy. For the presentation of the Planning Commission I felt I needed to prove to
the Planning Commission as well as the developer that there are alternative design methods
where you can develop in concert with the natural resources. I provided two conceptual layouts.
Those conceptual layouts were loose, I did them on just a piece of paper traced out with the
design originally was, traced out where the canopy was, kind of laid out how the buildings could
be placed, how the developer could still keep most of his parking and still have out lots, or lots to
sell. I was asked during that time what my recommendation was and it was for 15% minimum.
And) was also asked if I was giving an alternative with these concepts and what kind of
percentage requirement was preserved with those concepts. Those concepts preserved
approximately halfof the canopy. They were what I thought was.a way to get the developer to
work toward our minimum standards and I feel that by during so that 1/2 of a percent that half of
the canopy would then represent 11-12% . I felt that I gave the impression that was an
acceptable solution. I didn't feellthat I could hold back on that statement, that''/ of the canopy
was okay. I mean,'I gave a concept that showed that of the canopy was being removed. That
is why I stuck with that, that would be 11 '/z % of the existing site. -I did not approve of the
project that the'Planning Commission level. I said that it was very close to the concepts that I
had developed. I stated that my recommendation would reinainahe same as it was at March 27`h
which showed those concepts. But I also stated to the Planning Commission that I support the
minimum canopy and that my recommendation fell short of the tree preservation ordinance..
Alderman Kyle Russell asked Miss Hesse if it was her opinion that the 10.3% plan, "although
you felt like you needed to give your okay for it at the Planning Commission meeting, is it your
position that it complies with the Tree Protection and Preservation Ordinance?"
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, said it did not comply with the ordinance.
Alderman Kyle Russell thanked Miss Hesse.
Alderman Ron Austin said he had a question. Reading the minutes of the Planning Commission
on April 24th, Page 54, when Chairman Odom says, "Kim, do you feel what they have proposed
is a reasonable plan of compromise," and I am reading from the minutes, and you said, "yes."
What was your intent?
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, answered that she had been doing this for twenty months,
approximately, and I have looked at several different situations. No situation has come before
me quite like this, where there is that much rare tree canopy coverage. A lot of times we see tree
canopy that is sometimes is unhealthy, sometimes are of the species that is not desirable, and I
am careful to say that because what is desirable to one person is not to another. I felt, and I
always have tried to look at all sides of the story. I felt that the developer had made a very good
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faith effort to meet us part way. To say it is reasonable in my mind isn't necessanly saying that
it met the ordinance.
Alderman Ron Austin said he had one more question. First of all, knowing what I know about
your job, I wouldn't want your job. I know you work very hard at it. I just wonder why the
ambiguity of the number of trees out there, when we started out with over a 100 endangered trees
and we adjusted it to 98, and we adjusted it to 91. Then this week I read an article in the paper
that was talking about 81. How many trees are there and how do we determine this?
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, said originally it was always stated 98. I have never heard
of over a 100. The way that the engineering company represents their tree preservation plan,
basically is they identify each individual tree and it is shown by a code like T3 and down below
on a chart you see T3 and it describes the size and species. Well, what they did is the same
engineering firm had represented the entire 300 some acre development. They had to also submit
a tree preservation plan for that. In order to save time, and I have no problem with this, they
used the same codes and the same chart. There were a few of those trees, like say from 56-60
that were not on that site. There were missed numbers. If you were to go through the chart, and
looked at number one and number 98, it appears there are 98 trees. But if you looked
individually through the chart there are about fourteen, there were numbers missing. There are
81 identified rare, landmark trees, rare trees, none of these are actually on any historic register
that I am aware of which is the defining factor of a landmark tree. But these are all rare trees.
There are 81 rare trees. There are several trees that are smaller than 24 inches that do exist out
there.
Alderman Ron Austin thanked Miss Hesse.
Alderman Bob Davis asked of which of those 81 trees they going to save 27 rare trees that are
larger than 24 inches, is that correct?
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, answered 26.
Alderman Bob Davis said that was still above the 15% if we are looking at rare trees.
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, said we are looking at 15% of the entire site.
Alderman Bob Davis said he understood that but he was looking at the tree population itself.
Alderman Ron Austin said he believed that there was a concession on the part of the company
that you would save one more tree you didn't keep bringing more things back to the table.
Didn't you say you would go to 27? Is that correct?
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Kirk Rankin with the Argus Properties replied the Planning Commission requested that we plant
along Van Asche. That was the issue. We were planting 29 point caliber trees along Van Asche,
which is greater than the minimum planting requirements. We increased the size of that from 2
inch diameter to 4 inch diameter plus.
Alderman Bob Davis said to Kim that one problem he had was that when Conrad asked her that
question, 'Do you feel what has been proposed is a reasonable plan of compromise?" And you
answered it, "yes." To me you told the Planning Commission that you thought it was okay and
you have your approval in my opinion. And because of that you put us in a difficult situation.
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, replied this ordinance puts her in a difficult situation every
day.
Alderman Bob Davis said he understood.
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, I feel a more concrete requirement would really eliminate
a lot of problems for the City and for anyone reviewing these projects. There are so many
aspects that vary from site to site. There are site limitations. There are safety. regulations and
many other variables that go into a project. It is almost impossible to document why you
determine why this particular development should save this many trees, and why that particular
development should that many trees. It is really difficult to document.
Alderman Bob Davis said he understood.
Kim Hesse, Landscape Administrator, said she didn't know if they defend a lot of documentation
because they are so variable and I don't know the wishes of this Council but my wishes are that
this ordinance would be a little bit easier to enforce, somehow.
Mayor Hanna asked if anyone had anything else?
Alderman Kyle Russell stated he was going to move to deny the plan on the ground that it did
not meet the 15% minimum canopy requirements specified in the Tree Preservation and
Protection Ordinance, and on the grounds that the "cannot be preserved" required language of
Section 167.05B1 which allows replacement does not apply to this case.
Alderman Trent Trumbo stated he appreciated Kyle bringing this back because his convictions
are obviously very strong and that is a right of a city alderman. I have a lot of respect for that.
He added he appreciated all the public comments on both sides of this issue. I think that we had
very good comments, pros and cons and input from a lot of compassionate people with very
strong convictions on both sides of this issue. (So I really have a lot of respect for our democratic
process. Everyone was very orderly. I have been up here 3 '/z years and have dealt with a lot of,
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controversial issues and try not to take anything personal and have had differences with my wife
on a lot of these issues in 3 '/2 years but the process does work. I think this ordinance that was
brought into being in 1993 obviously needs to be fine tuned and sent back to Environmental
Concerns and Ordinance Review to be fine tuned. I do not like to over turn the Planning
Commission on a 6-3 vote on something that they did here in their chambers I look at the
Planning Commission as enforcing the ordinances that we put on the books and this was an
ordinance that was put on the books in 1993. It is very ambiguous and I would not want to
override the Planning Commission's decision on this issue.
Mayor Hanna acknowledged Mr. Santos.
Alderman Kevin Santos said he just wanted to say that this ordinance was compromise from the
beginning. We have compromised it every time that somebody has applied for development. I
think that Kim is saying that this was a reasonable compromise compared to all the other
compromises that we have made with this ordinance through the years. It was a reasonable
compromise and I want to compliment the developers on their efforts to compromise and like I
say this may be one of the best tree preservation plans we have seen since we passed this
ordinance. But still I don't believe that is right. I think that the way the ordinance is written we
should enforce the ordinance. This is a watershed decision. I would like to make a comment
about the cry for the economic advantages. This is not a base economy or export economy
business. It is not locally owned. It is not locally manufactured. It is a service job. Base
economy export jobs create service jobs like this. It is not really the kind of element we should
pursue. These tax advantages, these taxes are not paid by Kohl's but by the people of
Fayetteville who demanded that we pass this tree protection ordinance. As far as Mr. Butt's
comments, I think he would agree with me that, I will agree with him that the situations that he
did describe on Constitutional takings where 85% of the property was under develop able but
that is exactly the opposite the case here. There is no rational nexus to your descnption of the
Constitutional taking in this particular case. Takings case law from Penn Central through Nolan,
Dolan & Lucas, they have always agreed that the first part of two part takings test is, does the
regulation remove all economic value of the property? The answer is no, that is not an
unconstitutional taking. I don't think we have that to worry about. I'll have to support Kyle's
appeal.
Alderman Ron Austin said he had a comment he would like to make. I think the developers in
the beginning had the opinion that they should be free to do what they like with their property.
They didn't get that in the ordinance. In the practice over the years, since this ordinance has
been on the books, they have gotten in practice, somewhat, of their ideal established by these
repeated exceptions to the policy. Now I know, and 1 have talked to Alderman Russell earlier,
and to two to three attorneys that have studied negotiations of law, and I have studied a little bit
of it myself and I know that many times when you're in negotiations and you lose, to the next
round you try to get established and practice what you didn't in the negotiations in the first place.
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If you can get established in practice then you can almost claim it as the law. If you do that time
and time and time again that is the expectation. I agree that this is a move in the right direction
We do need to preserve more trees. Fayetteville is'a good place to live and it will be a better
place to live with the strength from the ordinance. In this case I think the right thing to do is
support the Planning Commission. That is how I will vote.
Alderman Heather Daniel asked to say a few words I have received a clear, clear message from
the citizens. In my ward alone, I know of two who have not supported upholding the 15% of the
tree canopy. I am very proud of the folks in my ward because only one of those form letters
showed up out of the dozens of responses that I received. I am really proud of that and I am
bragging on you guys. People stopped me when I was out in my yard to talk to me. They called
me and wrote individual letters. Maybe two; out of the dozens of responses from my ward, were
for letting the developers go on with their plan. As it is, this is a citywide issue, and the
responses have been the same across the board wanting us to uphold the tree ordinance. I am
going to have to go along with the appeal. I think the developers are trying to put a size 8 foot in
a size 5 shoe and that has been the problem from the beginning.
Alderman Cyrus Young said from just analyzing this he would start from the beginning. The
title of this ordinance is the Tree Protection and Preservation I go then to the section that a lot of
them have been quoting, 167.05 the canopy, number C, "all new subdivisions, large scale
developments and commercial developments, trees shall be preserved as outlined below." Kim
Hesse went over there and said 15%. Jack Butt mentioned Section E, "in the event a tree cannot
be preserved as required tree replacement," but it has not been demonstrated that any of those
trees cannot be preserved. They can be preserved The question is, should they? You all are
talking about strengthening the ordinance. Well, I sat in those meetings. I asked Jerry Rose
about the words, "shall" and "may" What does the word "shall" mean? I am going to go with
his original opinion that the word -"shall" means that you will do it. There is no discretion. That
is the way I am going to go with it. My interpretation of the ordinance is that I will support the
appeal.
Alderman Robert Reynolds stated after being on the Planning Commission for six years, he knew
that this ordinance needed a lot more work done to it and we have to attack this after this issue is
brought to light. At the last meeting, I can remember Randy Zurcher met me at the front door
and told me 1 was going to be the swing vote because I was a past Planning Commissioner. He
was right? I upheld it and sent it back to the Planning Commission: f They have now made their
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decision. They sent it to us and I am going to uphold it When this is over we need to work on •
it, but right now I am going to uphold the Planning Commission:
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Alderman Bob Davis said he was going forth with the Planning Commission with this..I feel like
the Landscape Administrator had the ability as she showed us t If that person so desired to say
yes or no to this and in my opinion, what the "no" says is that she indicated that, yes she thought
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it was reasonable and just, and because of that, it's like we have to support the Planning
Commission, because we have a person that has stated that's the case. I would like to get with
Jack and see if we can rewrite this ordinance as he said he would be willing to help. I see a lot of
room for improvement so maybe we can away from this problem in the future. We all know that
any time there is legal documents put up, it is always nght to argue, and that is why we have
attorneys. You always have people debating one side and someone else debating the other, and
that is why we have attorneys and courts.
Alderman Kyle Russell made a motion to deny the plan on the ground that it does not meet
the 15% minimum canopy requirements specified in the Tree Protection and Preservation
Ordinance, and on the ground that the cannot be preserved required language of Section
167.05131, which allows replacement, does not apply to this case. Alderman Kevin Santos
seconded motion. Upon roll call the motion failed by a vote of 4-4-0.
Mayor Hanna called upon Mr. Rose after the roll call.
Mr. Rose stated it failed because of no majority.
Mayor Hanna thanked everyone for showing up and voicing their opinions. He thought it had
been healthy, regardless of which side you were on. They had done some good tonight. Thank
you. There will be a five minute recess before the next item.
SOCCER COORDINATOR: A resolution approving a budget adjustment to hire a Soccer
Coordinator to administer the youth and adult soccer program for the City Parks and Recreation
Division.
Mayor Hanna read the last item which had been pulled from the Consent Agenda for discussion.
Alderman Heather Daniel had requested the item be pulled from the consent agenda.
Alderman Heather Daniel said she was not indicating her opinion on this at all. From her
experience on the Council, she thought every request like that had been granted and she just
wanted to be fair. She had never been against something being pulled from the Consent Agenda.
She just wanted to be fair, as she stated.
Alderman Trent Trumbo addressed Alderman Daniel, the Parks Board had held a public, open,
hearing on the Fayetteville Soccer Association, to discuss whether their group or the Parks Board
should manage the Soccer Program. The Parks Board made a decision to have the Parks
Department start organizing and putting together the soccer program. Right now, we have been
managing the fields and keeping them up for years. They made a Board decision, and from his
point of view, the council did not need to micro manage their decisions.
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Mayor Hanna explained what we have before us is a resolution approving a budget adjustment to
hire a soccer coordinator. That is really that is open for discussion. We are not here to discuss
the Parks & Recreation Board's decision on the soccer league or that sort of thing. We are here
for one thing and that is a budget adjustment.
Alderman Trent Trumbo said, which the dollar amount for the individual be more than made up
from the fees of the program
Alderman Ron Austin said since the issue was taken off of the Consent Agenda, he thought it
would be wise to have the same kind of comment made for public record from our Director. He
questioned , "do we have the money to do this? Do we have the money to do this, to make this
budget adjustment and from where will the money come?
Connie Edmonston, Parks Director, stated the money will come from the participant's
registration fees and from sponsorships, just like money they use to run other programs
t,
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Alderman Ron Austin asked if they were sacrificing any other program or cuttingany budget to
get the money?
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Connie Edmonston, Parks Director, replied, no, in fact the registrations fees would be $5.00 less
than what they are currently paying. - ,
Alderman Robert Reynolds addressed the Mayor. Last week was the first time he had heard
anything about soccer. He has had several phone calls at home. The FSA president came tonight
because he asked them if they would like to come and make their spill before the Council made a
decision on this. She is here and I would like to give her a chance to speak.
Mayor Hanna said that this was the object of this. We will go ahead and open the discussion to
the public. Anyone that would like to address this please come forward.
Debbie Winters:
I am the President of Fayetteville Soccer Association. I have been
president since January of this year. Prior to that I have served as vice
president and registrar, also. In addition to that, I am the mother of two
soccer players in Fayetteville, and I coach one of the Fayetteville Soccer
Association teams. My team played tonight. I didn't get to coach because
I carne here to address this issue with you guys. The Fayetteville Soccer
Association is a non-profit volunteer based organization that has been
serving the community of Fayetteville for twenty-five years. We have our
own bylaws. We elect our own board. We are totally independent of the
City or the Parks & Rec program. Financially we only depend on
registration fees and sponsorships. All the work is done by volunteers.
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We have contributed a lot to the improvements of the fields. Up until this
year we have paid the water bill on all of the soccer fields which come to
approximately $13,000.00 a year. That comes out of our budget. We built
goals and we would to thank the Parks & Rec Department for putting up
some of the new goals that we have for the little kids this year. In the past
the goals have come out of our budget. We have built them or bought
them. In 1996 we installed an irrigation system so a lot of the
improvements that have happened on the field are due to the Fayetteville
Soccer Association. We have made large investment in this program and
we're the reason the program has grown. Both a survey that we did in the
Spring of 1999 and the recent one that the Parks & Rec Department did,
showed more than average satisfaction with our program. This is why we
were very surprised at the Parks & Rec Board decision. We presented our
program. The Comets presented a program that they wanted to start but the
City did not present anything. The Parks & Rec Board decided to let the
Parks & Rec run it even though they still have not presented anything to us
or to the public. This has caused a lot of confusion to the people. We
have had a lot of our members ask us what kind of program they are going
to have and we don't know. Our people, our members have called the City
who doesn't return their phone calls or they have no answers for them.
We have a couple of questions. The Parks & Rec Department has stated
publicly that the Fayetteville Soccer Association will get last priority on
the field. We want to know why and we want to know what their program
is going to consist of. We feel like these questions need to be answered
before any money is allocated towards the position for a soccer
coordinator. Soccer registration and a soccer year has to be planned
approximately a year in advance. That is what we have been in the
process of doing, planning our Fall 2000. When they decided on April
11 `" to let the Parks & Rec Department run a program we had planned
registration to start that following Saturday. We had that planned for
months. We've already purchased uniforms. There is a lot of cost that
goes into this. Our members have asked us to continue our program.
They know what they get and they are satisfied with that. We welcome
the City program but we still want to know what their program is going to
consist of and we want to know why do we get last pnonty on the fields.
They have stated that their goal is to promote recreational soccer and if
this is so, we want to know why we can't get adequate space for the size of
the program that we will have. Thank you.
Mayor Hanna stated he felt it was appropriate to get some answers to those questions.
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Alderman Ron Austin said he felt that most of those questions could be answered by the Parks &
Rec Board that made the decision.
Alderman Robert Reynolds said he would also like to hear about some complaints that we have
received at the City about the FSA before you get through, please.
Eric Schuldt, Parks Development Coordinator, stated they could answer some of those. From his
experience being new here the last year and a half, we have worked with the different soccer
groups to try to get some coordination between the Fayetteville Soccer Association, the Arkansas
Comets and the scholastic teams that participate7We have created an advisory board made up of
people from those different groups to try to work together to try to coordinate this. It is quite a
huge program trying to coordinate what the three different groups are doing on City facilities.
There has been a lot of problems and issues and complaints that we have received at the Parks
office. The city's program would make sure that we had a position to run this program. Then
our next step was going to get an advisory board, made up of people interested in recreational
soccer, so they could provide us input as to how the program should be developed. We would
also work with the -Arkansas State Soccer Association to follow their guidelines to make sure that
we are doing everything right as far as the City's program. There has been a lot of confusion. I
think the confusion has been that we were asked to run a program and they are continuing their
own program So citizens do not know which direction to go, should they register with the City
or should they register with FSA?
Alderman Trent Trumbo asked how they were going to prioritize the usage of the fields?
Mr. Schuldt explained the first priority would be to recreational soccer. It would be to the City
of Fayetteville's program The second priority would be to adult recreational soccer. The third
priority would be to competitive soccer. There have been some people say that it is specifically
to the Comets, but it would be to all interested competitive groups. There is a group in
Springdale that runs a competitive program, and also the Comets, but in the future, there will
probably be more competitive soccer. The last group on this form that was submitted was all
other groups: I didn't list FSA but it would be all other groups. Granted, she is right in saying
that FSA would probably be at the bottom tier because it is a duplicate program. In our eyes a
duplicate program, is that we are May 11, 2000 hopefully already meeting everybody's needs
after routing the recreational program through the City.
Debbie Winters, President of Fayetteville Soccer Association, said she had some material she
wanted to hand out to the Council so that you will have some information. She asked if the
council were truly interested in the developmental program or recreational program, why can't
we have the same prionty or equal priority to your recreational program? You still haven't
presented, and I don't think you can expect people to make a decision, yes or no, whether they
want to play with you guys if you don't tell them what they are going to get.
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Eric Schuldt, Parks Development Coordinator, I think we can tell them there are some basic
things. We are going to work with the Arkansas State Soccer Association. We are going to offer
some of the same programs that are offered in other cities. We have already talked with the City
of Rogers, Arkansas, who has taken over administration of their soccer program. It would be a
similar run program to what they are doing. They have one of the largest participant base in our
state. They provide organization. We do not have our program ironed out exactly how we are
going to do that and the reason is that we want to get people involved in making those decisions
on how it will run. Our ideal is to have a brochure going out in a week that would talk about
registration dates and where you can register. You would register at the Fayetteville Parks &
Recreational Office, at the Fayetteville Youth Center, and there will be on site registration. Our
registration process and the different age groups that we will offer and the times of the fields, that
stuff, I think we have pretty much worked out. But as far as how teams are comprised, how
teams are drafted, some of those issues that we think it's important to involve the State and what
they have to say, and we want to also involve our Advisory Board, which has yet to be created
because we don't have the position.
Alderman Robert Reynolds asked if the number one concern here was the youth, nght?
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association, and Eric Schuldt, Parks
Development Coordinator, both answered, yes.
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association, said they still do not have an
answer to the field problem. The City had stated several times that we won't have fields and
encouraged people to not register with us based on that fact. If they are interested in recreational
soccer, we would like to have the equal opportunity. You know, if we have 500 kids and they
have 500 kids, then we need the same amount of space and times that they have.
Eric Schuldt, Parks Development Coordinator, said for one thing I think here would be in the
best interest of everybody, if the two groups could come together, and it is a win-win situation if
we have a full time soccer coordinator administer through the City, and working with FSA as far
as advisory boards, including them on our advisory board and getting them involved in that
aspect of it, but take away some of that administrative burden that's placed on them. I think it
would be in the best interest of the City and our participants if we have a centralized location and
we can offer that through the Parks Department. We need volunteers. We need people that have
gone through it and done it over the years. We need that help even with the full time soccer
coordinator.
Alderman Ron Austin said it did seem to him that there was a duplication here, unnecessary
duplication of services. I am not in a position to judge but it seems like the Board has already
made the decision. Although I am subject to being educated on this issue, it seems like what
information we should get is information that should impact our decision whether or not the
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staff, the City's position. I am not going to make that decision based on competition between the
City program and a private run program. I am going to make that decision based on data that I
am given, whether or not we can afford it, and that sort of thing. I appreciate that information.
Alderman Bob Davis, Eric or Connie, could you all give us some examples of some of the
problems that the FSA was having.
Connie Edmonston, Parks Director, said she knows it does sound kind of harsh. Why take over a
program that has been going on for twenty plus years with volunteers? Why pay somebody?
Soccer has grown throughout the years. It had gotten to a point that it needed more. Our
community is wanting more from our soccer program " They are wanting a more organized
soccer program. Many times volunteers have a real Job and don't have the time to commit to
what the participants and what the community is demanding. When she first came on board in
1998, she heard from Dale Clark, that the last few years had been pretty bad with soccer. They
had numerous, numerous complaints. In fact, Dale Clark had told her that he had visited with the
President of FSA in December of 1997; and told them they had to either improve or he was going
to take over. Also, in December of 1997, we received a letter from five past presidents of FSA
who were wonderful. They had a great program That is when the numbers were way up. We
had one vice president of FSA sign it, one register of FSA, and also, two active soccer coaches
that signed it. They stated basically that during the eighties and the early nineties, the volunteers
and FSA created a soccer ball game that was the largest in Arkansas. Now we are not. Our
numbers have gone down. We were a model for other associations. They went on and stated,
and I am quoting this, "Unfortunately, and for a variety of reasons the volunteer base within FSA
has been shrinking over the past few years." And as a result they recommended that there needed
to be a full time person to handle this program. We met with FSA in Spring of '98, when she
came on. They held two soccer public meetings. They put an ad in the paper and said anybody
who is interested in the future of soccer please come to the Youth Center. We had a number of
people come. They had numerous concerns ranging from the restrooms weren't open, the '
concession stand was not always open, the calls were never returned on the answering machine.
One mother who had come to a public meeting that went on for so long she didn't get an
opportunity to talk. Her daughter had wanted to play in soccer for different seasons, three
different years, and every year there was always, "well, that team didn't make; okay, well, you
can wait and play in the Spring, and then the Spring came around and it didn't make. Then
finally her daughter wasn't interested anymore. There are numerous occasions that this has
occurred. Also on the soccer registration forms this last year, "any registered player was not
guaranteed to be placed on a team." Entry forms stated not to call FSA. They had no contact
person to call. A lot of people cannot be called at work for a volunteer Job. We understand that
but the public needed to know who to call. Many times there were no referees for games and the
coaches had to referee. The referees weren't being paid. It Just keeps going on and on. Some
teams were able to stay together. Other teams did not. They did not always get their uniforms.+`
The equipment was not turned in. There was no list. Just many, many, organizational problems.
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I have a whole list. I don't want to prolong this meeting but people were very upset at these first
two public meetings that we held in the Summer of 1998. The Parks Staff put together a list of
recommendations and met with the Soccer Association. These are things that we would like to
see accomplished. You must go by your constitution and bylaws. I guess there was a conflict in
that. Few of those things were ever achieved The deadlines were not met. When Eric and Terry
came on board, we established an Advisory Board to help direct soccer. This was comprised of
the Fayetteville Soccer Association Commons and Interscholastic Soccer and three Parks Staff
people. The reason why we had that together was that we wanted soccer to be a unit, all groups,
different groups to work together so we could one good program. Since that time they have had
three different people that were assigned to that, their board members kept quitting. They were
not happy with the Board. Some of the problems, she felt as though, made the City Parks feel
like they had not stepped up to the plate Some of their concerns were back to us Hey, the
soccer fields aren't good enough. We picked up and Terry has the soccer fields working
wonderful. They are on a plan now. We are trying to keep them good. We purchased soccer
goals. These things just went on and on. Also, the concession stand restrooms weren't being
managed or opened for the people, or the little gals or little boys, so we took that over. Also last
year the lines weren't always being painted. They were suppose to paint their own lines. We
took that over. The utilities weren't always paid. They said they didn't have enough money to
pay the utilities. We took that over. We are basically trying to say, hey, we are here to help you.
Let us do these things. You run the program well for the children, for our kids. Run a good
program. Even with us doing the fields we have had to beg for schedules. We give them a time
line that we need a schedule from them from this date. We never received it from them. It has
been kind of an uncooperative situation. We have wanted to work it out, believe me, for a year
and a half, we have met with them trying to work these programs out. We didn't get anywhere.
We did request them come to our Parks Board in January. They failed to show. They just didn't
show. I guess another thing is that there has been a report that they are not abiding by the
Arkansas State Soccer Association rules and regulations. That concerns us. We felt when we
analyzed this problem and we thought, well, let's let the Parks Board look at it. We will have a
big public meeting and let them tell us which route we need to go. They reviewed it. They
approved that probably the best way to run this program for our city would be the Fayetteville
Parks & Recreation Division. We will accept that task, step up to the plate, have an advisory
group and use volunteers. We want to have the best program for the kids, something that is
friendly, something that people will know what is going on and they have the schedule, and
something that is very organized. We will and want to use these people, use their expertise to
help us develop it. Did I answer your question?
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association, said she could answer each
individual thing that Connie just said unless she hands me that piece of paper she worked off of.
But many of them are just simply not true. We have never failed to pay our utility bill. We have
never failed to open the bathrooms and maintain the bathrooms. I mean a lot of things they have
said I can tell you that I personally asked for every complaint that you people had against us and
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David Wright handed me an envelope with three letters in it. Three letters! We have between
800 and a 1000 people who register with us every year. Three complaints is all you could come
up with. We presented our goals for 2000 to them and they totally ignored it. There is a problem
here but it is not that we are failing to do our job. The survey that you presented
Alderman Robert Reynolds asked Ms. Winters to address the Council, please.
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association,. said the survey that the Parks
& Rec Department did this Spring, just recently in the last month, showed that we came out
above average. The same as Woodland where the kids are a much smaller group. The same as
the Arkansas Comet that select their parents. It is a totally different situation. They don't have
nearly the numbers that we do. I would just like to say that most of the comments that Connie
just made are simply not true.
Alderman Robert Reynolds asked Ms. Winters, about a comment that he received from a parent
that you had a coach that shoved a referee down and was dismissed by the State Association.
You are the President this year. He was brought back and is coaching two teams. Is there
anything to that? -
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association, said, yes I would be glad
Alderman Robert Reynolds asked Ms. Winters why was that going on when that is not suppose
to be?
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association, said she would be glad to
address that issue. First of all he is not coaching either of those teams. This is a situation where
the State did not notify us of this suspension at all. We heard about it from the coach himself.
He removed himself from both of teams that he was coaching in the Fall, and he is not coaching
either one of those teams. This has gone beyond and over our heads now. It is a U.S. level. We
have done everything we can at the local level and so has the State.
Alderman Robert Reynolds asked Ms. Winters, if he was still in their program?
•
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association, said he was a parent. He is a
parent in our program.
Alderman Robert Reynolds asked if he was working with kids?
Debbie Winters, President of the Fayetteville Soccer Association, answered no, he is not
coaching a team. He is a parent. We cannot prohibit parents from being on the field. The
suspension does not prohibit him as a parent for being there. We can't kick his kids out. They
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haven't done anything. He is still a parent of two children who are registered with us. We have
done everything we can. He is not coaching that team. And we have done everything we can.
There are a lot of problems with the way the State has conducted this. Like I said, they have sent
two letters addressed to the Fayetteville Soccer Association about this issue, but neither of the
letters have ever arrived at the Fayetteville Soccer Association post office box.
Alderman Robert Reynolds thanked Ms. Winters. Could we hear something from Bill Ackerman,
who is on the Parks Board?
Alderman Heather Daniel said they needed to go in order of those waiting.
Alderman Ron Austin said they did allow rebuttal ahead of Miss Thiel.
Brenda Thiel stated all I want to say is that the reason the Board made the decision they did was
because recreational soccer in Fayetteville has just gotten too large for the volunteer organization
to met all their needs. Not that we don't appreciate the many years that the Fayetteville Soccer
Association has given the City of Fayetteville, but there are just so many participants. I know
that both the registration of the children and the scheduling has been a constant problem for the
last few years with FSA. I have heard about this since I have been on the Board. I know there
was an advisory board formed to try to address this problem made up of the vanous soccer
groups and Bill Ackerman was on that, I believe, and FSA failed to even show. They were not
even interested in attending these advisory board meetings. They just didn't seem to really want
to cooperate. The Parks Board just felt like that probably the best solution would be to turn this
over to the Parks Department because they have done a very good job in the past on other
programs that they have taken over. I think there would be more organization for capability in
the office for the scheduling and the registration Primarily the Board felt like that we really felt
confident that FSA would join in and we certainly wanted their volunteers to make the whole
program work. We felt like it would kind of ease a lot of their responsibility, as Connie said. I
really don't know what the problem is to be honest, I mean, I think the Board was just under the
assumption that the Federal Soccer Association, their volunteers and children would, I mean we
all want the best thing for the kids. We were really surprised of the reaction to this. I am not
even sure of what they really want. The letter that was sent stated that they support us hiring an
administrator, or at least the person who sent the letter to the Board. I don't really see what their
problem is. I think that Bill might want to add something or you might want to give him a
chance.
My name is Bill Kraft and I live here in Fayetteville. I am a parent of two kids, a boy and a girl.
I have been involved in the Fayetteville Soccer Association for nine years. My children love
this game. I love being around my children so I take my time to be around my kids and coach
them because no one else could be a better coach than their Dad who shows love for them. I
have become very involved in the soccer program because I wanted to not because I had to. I
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was a President of Fayetteville Soccer Association last year. We all go through growing pains,
you know, as parents and we always try to listen to what our parents say because they have
wisdom. They have been there before. I am telling you, I have been there. I have been at the top
running the organization and it requires a lot. It requires a lot of people to be involved to run a
good organization. You just cannot hire one person because it takes a lot of people If you have
confusion and you have many programs, then the program that draws the best should win
because they are going to provide the love for the kids at the financial price that a parent can
afford and they will give our kids the best knowledge of the game. I always tell my children that
we are not here to win or lose, we are here to just have fun. We are coming out on this field, that
we don't even need lines, we don't need paint, we don't need nets, all we need a ball and kids.
Basically that is all we need. I think that we lose track of what really the priorities are, and it is
to just to have a ground to have our kids to play on, a mowed ground I went there the other day
and I didn't have a full team because they conflicts on doing other things so we just take up the
ball and play in the corner, not a very big corner because we don't have big kids And then we
let the bigger kids take the bigger field because they are bigger.'I really don't know what the'
is really. All I know is that I have been involved in a program
for nine years in the City and my kids like it. Everyone on my team enjoys it. They enjoy being
on my team. They just enjoy coming out and playing this game. 'I don't know what -the right
solution is but I think we all should get together- and maybe let the public decide. Before you do
change, let the public decide. Maybe we should have a survey go out to our membership and let
them decide what program they are going to choose. But right now the public is confused
because the Federal Soccer Association has sent out their registration forms. Now the Parks &
Recreation Department wants to send out a registration form. People have come to me Saturday
and I spent three hours on the field Saturday answering questions from concerned parents
because they do not know what to do. They want it continued status quo but they also want to
see the other side of the coin if the City is going to offer a program. It is only fair for us citizens
to see both sides of the coin. Thank you very much.
Alderman Ron Austin stated he wanted to ask Mr. Kraft a question. What do you give up just
joining with the City program?
Mr. Bill Kraft, said he didn't know what the City was going to do.
Alderman Ron Austin said he meant he was saying that Mr. Kraft already had expertise. He had
wisdom and experience, and he had volunteer source, kids names and contacts, and I guess a
little money somewhere, probably, what would you give up just joining with the City and being a
part of that program?
Mr. Bill Kraft, answered that was just it. What do know what you are giving up if you don't
know what you are getting.
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Alderman Ron Austin said they were getting him.
Mr. Bill Kraft said, no, he meant, they do not know that they are getting him. The City does not
know if they are getting him You don't know where he might go yet. We are asking, I mean, the
Fayetteville Soccer Association is asking for equal nghts on the field. If there is another
program, two programs may still exist, or three. They are all going to come to you and ask for
rights on the field. If one program is better than the other, it should have the first pnonty
because it is the one providing the best for our citizens at the lowest cost. I don't know, Maybe
people will elect to pay $5 00.00 more because they are getting value for their money. I am an
investment broker and people pay me for advice They look to me for value because I have
trusted advice. I don't know! I think that we should look for advice and look to our membership
and ask them what they want. Maybe they don't want a change
Alderman Ron Austin said he was not suggesting anything of that sort. I just was wondering
why not join together and work together as a City.
Mr. Bill Kraft said he thought we should work together but before we do that you have to have
the program in place so people know so they won't jump from one ship to another ship, and if
this is possibly a sinking ship, you shouldn't have jumped. I think that it is just fair for me as a
person, as a dad, as a coach, past president, to know what the other program is providing, and
gladly join in it if it is the same or if it is better, why not? I mean they were here for the best for
our kids! I think we are here for value but the fun is the most important thing. Keep it fun for
the kids. I don't know really what the answer is other than maybe just tell our membership that
here are the two programs and then let them decide. The one that gets the most population
should take pnonty of the fields. Thank you for your time.
My name is and I was FSA before Bill Kraft. I am going to try to
be a little bold and try to answer the questions you have asked of Bill. At the same time, he
thinks he has spent a lot of time in this association. Prior to being president of the association he
served on the boards for a number of years as well. He knows and is familiar with all the names
that was in the letter that Connie referred to earlier. I am not here to challenge her validity or the
data that was presented in the letter that seemed to be the key document that was referred to
multiple times. That seemed to be the key event that triggered all of these emotions and was
what the City employees referred to as a way to discredit what FSA has done in the past. In my
hand here I have the letter that was wntten in December of 1997, signed by those members that
Connie mentioned earlier. But here in my hand I also have a certificate of recognition from the
State Soccer Association recognizing FSA for their outstanding job for the years of 1997 and
1998. When people are busy writing nasty letters, documents, we are doing a good job and being
recognized from the State organization. I am asking you to give a couple of minutes to tell you
the true story that happened exactly a couple of years ago. In May of 1998 FSA made public
forum also, because of one incident that happened out at Lewis Field. I am holding here an
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article that was written on May 6'" in 1998, and another article that was written the very day
afterward, May 7th. These all have to do with the love of the game and the labor that FSA
volunteers have put into the programs. Let me read one line here from this article. This article
says the reason we made the news, a couple of years ago, was because back then; we, the FSA
volunteers, have come out in numbers and helped to build goals for the kids. It is a change. It is
a new thing. It was a thing that our family loved to do and our kids loved to use them. The
parents joined in, however, the thing that was unfortunate was that these forty goals that were
being built all by volunteers, with money that we spent were vandalized, damaged, over night
and ruined. That is why the article said . The thing that was magical
about this incident was not why the goals were damaged orwhy we have people out there that do
not like us, bill the magical was that our kids did not playing those goals but in one game,
because the public turned around and helped them build another forty set of goals immediately.
The article said, and I will be glad to read it to you, "thousands of others joined us in asking the
Fayetteville Police"Department to find those responsible and charge them with a felony. We also
the culprit to turn themselves in and save time." The FSA' members population today is about a
thousand. You arestalking about involving a thousand families Fayetteville Citizens. They are
powerful and they have demonstrated that over and over. When we are in need of help they
come out and help. That was proven in the past. What I am saying here is that, if I may, I would
ask that your decision would need to be for the kids, for the kids that love the game because of
the recreation which is the objective of FSA, for the volunteers that know the program and have
the depth and the knowledge. You hear our president talking about preparing for the next year's
program, for 2000-2001. They took into consideration of making the best for the money, buying
uniforms a year ahead of time, and in all those you have to have the depth in understanding how
to run a program, how to play the games, how to make the games fun. For instance, our portable
goals, and I'm asking if you have to make a decision, you need to make a decision for the
volunteers who love the game and who carry the spirit and bring the spirit of the game high today
in our City and they have done that for years and years. Last, my comment would be, as a
taxpayer for the City, I think the tax money would be better spent for more soccer fields rather
than for more administrative. I thank you.
I'm Missy Harris and I live at 310 North Washington Avenue, and I did send a letter today. I
thank the aldermen that I talked to for considering my request. I am concerned. I would like to
see these two groups and all the groups of soccer, come together in Fayetteville, myself. I think
a paid person is an excellent idea. I think that it is too big now to be controlled by a volunteer
group. I am concerned with the manner to which the City started the process. I believe it started
out as an adversarial sort of position because they did say they were going to limit fields and all
of that was really confusing. It might have been nice if the Parks Board could have started out
contacting the volunteers for FSA saying, "gosh, we know that you already have uniforms, you
have already started registration, can we somehow get in on this? Can we get togetherT And I
am wondering if anyone did contact any of the volunteers on the Board before registration post
cards were sent out from a separate entity. That is what I am concerned about I really want this
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group to all get together and I don't want there to be one side of a board on the Parks Board that
hates the Fayetteville Soccer Association and can't work with them. I think everybody needs
representation on this Advisory Committee that we are talking about and I would like to know
that is for sure going to happen before you agree to have a position paid, a director paid. If a
director is chosen, if it was my choice, I would want it to be someone that wasn't involved with
any of these groups. I can't tell you to hire but I think you are going to get into trouble there,
too, if you pick people who have been on one side or the other and they can't get over it. I think
the thing that is so hard for the FSA to take is that the Parks Board has made them seem in such a
bad light because they have brought up all of these complaints and complaints and complaints.
That is going to happen with any volunteer organization. You are going to have complaints from
parents. That is just the way it is I think they have done a great Job and they would like to be
recommended for it and that is where they stand. I think if they received some good
recommendation they would feel better about coming together with this. That is my opinion. I
don't know if I am speaking for the Board. I am not on the Board but I am a parent and I think
that would the best thing for the kids.
My name is John Plummer. I had three pages worth of notes. My kids better be in bed by now,
Ian and Kara. And I better still have that bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich waiting for me,
Patti, please. I love you. Three pages worth of notes, I can get real passionate about this but
listening to people I can throw a lot of this away. You can hear a lot of passion in this. The City
has already made a move to take the passion out of the politics and put it back into the game. I
coach U10 soccer. I have coached for 5-6 years now. To count exactly, I am not going to. I
coach baseball. I have coached girls baseball. I do anything my kids do as everybody here. I
have been a former member of the FSA Board. I admire the work that they have done. They
have nurtured something the best they can. I'll tell you two quick stories of about why it is too
big, but I will tell you as former board member, that Connie and them when I first came on, I am
a fighter and I use to fight semi-professionally. I like to get hit and I like to hit you back. I came
to Connie and them. I was going to take her on. A woman is not going to push me and my kids
around. I didn't need any pushing. They listened. We talked. We had dialogue. We worked
things out. I went back to my own organization. It wasn't willing to make any compromises. I,
myself, in the past, has tried to coordinate the conflicts with baseball. I got baseball people to
talk to me about it. I understand the soccer people's point that if they compromise to every
organization every sport, you don't have a sport left. I see that. But they haven't come up with
any reason not to let the City administer an association. They haven't come up with any reason
why they cannot join in. There is not any reason. This year for us was soccer. It began on a hot,
humid day in August and there were over 2,000 people standing on one soccer field. If you'd
seen a soccer field slightly larger than a football field, but not much larger, 2,000 people were out
there. One Board member hands out approximately 60-70 rosters to 60-70 coaches, and all age
groups, all sexes. Those coaches began reading off lists. Now, if you can imagine 2,000 people
in the heat, 60 people reading off names of boys, families trying to scramble, that was the
onginal organizational meeting this year. Folks, that was a nightmare. There were children
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crying. People sweating. It didn't need to be that way. The thought was good. The effort was
tremendous. It didn't work. Last week we had a soccer festival. Great idea. My age group has
nine teams. We played six ten minute games. The format was every fifteen minutes you pick
up, you move to another field. You play another ten minute game. Now picture thirteen kids on
my team. Five teams staying on a field. Four teams rotating. You have forty-six kids
approximately eighty parents, ten plus grandparents and accountable siblings, hauling furniture,
lawn chairs and ice coolers around from field to field, to play a ten minute game, to have the
whistle blow and move to the next one. It was the most amazing game of musical chairs I have
ever played in my life. But I will tell you, through it all, the kids still had a reasonable good
time. That shocks me. But the point is the organization has gotten too big. Well, good thoughts
of me and a volunteer and other people as volunteers, they cannot come to fruition without the
expertise. The City has the logistics ability The City has the structure ability. The City, well, I
wrote one sentence I will keep, too. Our sports hit a crosswalk. To me the City of Fayetteville
has offered to stand at that crosswalk and be the crossing guard. They welcomed everybody to
join and cross. FSA is there at the crosswalk. Come and join us. Cross together. My suggestion
as a member of FSA is this is not something that our Board of Directors should decide. We
should have an assembly meeting of the members of FSA and let the organization vote on it. I
have sent to an E-mail. I, unfortunately, found out that the E-mail up to the board member that I
sent, has since resigned, which is usually the pattern. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that any
correspondence that somebody may claim be sent might have gotten to a board member that is no
longer with the Board. The organization doesn't work. The City took a great step the other week
about listening to people and making a really tough decision. As a volunteer, as a coach, as a
parent, were are going backwards if we step back from the work that you have already done.
Thank you.
I am Jeff Erf, Fayetteville resident. I also have a son that plays in the Fayetteville Soccer
Association. I will make it brief. If the City is going to administer this soccer program, I was
wondering if they were going to register non -Fayetteville residents?
Mayor Hanna said they could not answer that. Are we going to register non -Fayetteville
residents?
Connie Edmonston, said she was sure that they would, just as they had in the other sports. We
don't turn kids away based upon if they live We will welcome them.
Mayor Hanna said, they will.
•
N
• Jeff Erf, said they talked about setting priorities andI think some leagues have a percentage of .1
outside residents than others. I think the FSA is mostly Fayetteville children run by Fayetteville
parents. I just have some concerns about having non-residents have priority. over Fayetteville
residents. ; l
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Mayor Hanna asked if Fayetteville Soccer Association not allow non -Fayetteville residents?
Jeff Erf said he believed that they do. It is his understanding that it is about 2%.
Mayor Hanna said that if Jeff already knew the answer, then why did he ask them?
Jeff Erf said he did not know the answer. I did not know what their policy was going to be.
Thank you.
Bill Ackerman asked if he could address the Council?
Alderman Heather Daniel answered, certainly. There were some questions that maybe you could
answer and address.
I don't know if I can answer all of your questions. I am Bill Ackerman and I am on the board of
the Parks & Recreation Division here in the City. And in defense of the Parks Board and the
decision that they made and in support of the Staff at the Parks Office, I felt I needed to give you
just a little bit of insight that you may not have receive so far. If you think that everything with
the Soccer Association is rosy and going fine, and that we made a knee jerk decision, we really
need to examine the facts. Over four years ago, we started a project within our Parks &
Recreational Board and our Director at the time, Dale Clark, to work with all participants within
the leagues, the Soccer Association within Fayetteville. Everyone that had an interest in playing
soccer, we wanted to get them together We encouraged them to come Let's sort out your
disagreements. Let's work together Let's work through these problems and develop a program
that is the best for you and our community. That was four years ago. We have had countless
meetings since that time. We have set up, at least, two advisory boards that he knows of, made
up primarily of their organizations. And we still did not get a consensus. We still have constant
stress There is no question in my mind, that every parent and every child in this commumty,
including those folks who are in the soccer program, and who have children who want to play
soccer, do the very best they can to orchestrate a soccer program. But they do not have the
ability for whatever reason, over four years to bring this program together in cooperation to
where they can all live in harmony within the system and make it a better program for every
child and offer every child an opportunity to play. Now the politics at the athletic level are in the
game. You can believe it or not, if you have ever had children in little league, any other kind
whether it was football, or baseball, you know the politics are involved You are going to have
these problems. 95% of the participants in the soccer program go out there and have a great time
and want to do the things that are best for their children. You have a small group who are the
catalysts, the leadership core group who want to control everything. And this is okay if their
hearts are the right place and if it is in the best interest of the entire program. This from time to
time does not occur. You have break downs in communication and you have problems that
occur. Through four years of constant dealing with the problems and two recent hearings, one
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open to the public advertised, we sought to bring this organization of soccer together. We
couldn't do it. It is something that has been a problem for us. We have recognized it for months.
We knew. I personally had talked to the past president, begged with him one evening to get their
program togther, work with their board, get their people together and get organized for the
benefit of the children in the program. You hear the hp service. I have been through this kind of
rhetoric now for four years We hear the same thing over and over The program doesn't get
fixed. We took the responsibility away from them for maintaining the fields. We took the
burden of the sprinkler system and watering the fields from them. We took administrative
responsibilities away to maintain the facilities for the public to use in order to give them an
opportunity to run and manage and spend their time helping to develop and maintain their
program in growing. And that didn't even solve the problem. Now we got to where we are at
the Board level because we have tried every possible avenue to get these people to come
together. Now we don't come and we did not come and we are not here tonight in an adversarial
context with the group. Our hopes, when we made the decision, the other night were in the best
interest of them and our community, and we had asked them and hoped that they would come
together and join with us and let our staff take over the administrative responsibilities and
develop a program that their entire community could enjoy. That didn't happen. Now we are in
a transition period Any time you take a program to the magnitude of this one; you are in a
transition program. Now this has only happened only three weeks ago, on the 11th when we had
our special meeting. So the staff has been working diligently to put a program together.
Simultaneously, the FSA has gone out, and yes, there is a change in their scheduling now. There
is a new program to start here in the Fall They have been out there recruiting and doing the
normal things they would do. But I would venture to say, and this is just conjecture on my part,
but I would venture to say that 80% of their membership don't even have a clue until tonight or
the last few days that the Parks Division has taken over the program and that they have an option
to come in now and work with us to develop a program that would be the best for the entire
community in our opinion. Now we asked these people, and we ask again tonight, for them to
please come forth, and be a part of the program that is in the best interest of this community so
they can develop their skills and the growth of their children within that program Now we hope
this can all be resolved. The issue here tonight is whether or not we hire someone to go full time
to do this, and we at the Board level feel that it is imperative that we do that if we are going to
run a program, and we can run an outstanding program if we get the support of the community.
Thank you: , 1
Alderman Kevin Santos moved that the Council pass the motion. Alderman Trent Trumbo
seconded the motion. •Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
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RESOLUTION 59-00 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
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415 • lin
Mayor Hanna thanked everyone. Ron Austin has a comment.
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Alderman Ron Austin said he just wanted to comment. He was a little concerned, and he didn't
want to take a long time, since it is 10:40 p.m., but he did think the Council should clarify the
idea that minutes don't count. I think, if though I am not mistaken, our own rules say the
minutes of our meetings are our legal documents. And if we are called into court, then our
minutes are what they examine. I don't think they would take people's word out of context, or
go look at video tapes in a dispute and legal terms. In the next conversation on the next issue the
minutes of the Planning Commission were referred to repeatedly. I just want to bring that issue
up. Minutes are important. That is the Council's legal document. That is the Council's record.
That is what goes on the public record. Am I wrong?
Alderman Kevin Santos said the minutes are always wrong. There are always misspellings,
names are wrong. They are always wrong. I think with the video tape, do you take this
personally, Jerry?
Alderman Ron Austin said he did not think the minutes were wrong. When we approve the
minutes, we have the right interrupted by everyone.
Alderman Kevin Santos said he rarely found a single page that doesn't have a mistake on it.
Alderman Cyrus Young said you are assuming it is an exact transition, but it is not. Every word
is not in there.
Alderman Kyle Russell said the Planning Commission minutes are. That is suppose to be exact.
Everyone is talking at once and not being polite.
Alderman Cyrus Young said like the resolution written on CMN Business Park. I think that
resolution is far more important than and would take precedence over whatever is in the minutes.
Alderman Ron Austin said Robert's Rules of Ordinances says that minutes are the action taken
by the body. It's the action taken by the body. It is not the comments that we make.
Interruptions from the other aldermen
Alderman Cyrus Young said what we just did, the actions of this Council, not the minutes.
Alderman Ron Austin said they need to look into this because there is a question in his mind.
The minutes, I believe, are what we pass the motion, second and we vote on it. Those are the
minutes. Everything else is support material. Am I wrong?
Mayor Hanna said he thought that maybe you all need to go ahead and sit down and talk to the
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May 2, 2000
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City Attorney about this.
Alderman Robert Reynolds made a motion that they adjourn.
Everybody loudly seconded it.
Mayor Hanna said there was one more announcement.
Alderman Heather Daniel told everyone to relax. She wanted to thank everyone that participated
in the Skull Creek clean-up Saturday. Wal Mart came. They heard they had trash bags in the
creek. They came and provided wonderful cold drinking water. If I have missed anyone, I am
sorry. Thanks for the wonderful volunteers that showed up.
The meeting is adjourned.
J
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