HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-08-06 MinutesCity Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 1 of 35
MINUTES OF A MEETING'
OF THE
CITY COUNCIL
AUGUST 6, 2002
A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council was held on August 6, 2002 at 6:30 p.m. in Room
219 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville,
Arkansas.
PRESENT:. Aldermen Bechard, Santos, Jordan, Reynolds, Thiel, Young, Marr, Mayor
Coody, Kit Williams, City Attorney; Heather Woodruff, City Clerk/Treasurer; Staff,
Press, and Audience.
ABSENT: Alderman Davis
City Clerk Woodruff: July 2nd
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Mayor Coody.. There may need to be a correction to the July 2 minutes. We just noticed this a
minute ago, it was brought to our attention that they are talking about 46t11 Street and it has a
capacity of 20,000 cars per day but currently it is handling 36,000. It seems that 36,000 is
wrong.
City Clerk Woodruff: The 36,000 is wrong?
Mayor Coody: I'm not sure what the number is but I'm sure it's not carrying the capacity of the
highway.
Alderman Santos: 22,000 seems like the number I remember.
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City Clerk Woodruff: Okay.
Alderman Marr: There are 22,000 at the intersection
Alderman Jordan: 13,000 at the Intersection.'
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CONSENT:
4,and:I think 13,000 at 46th.
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APPROVAL OF THE MIN UTES:' Approval .of the 'July 2;. 2002 City Council: Meeting
Minutes.
RAILROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY: A resolution approving the sale of 7.68 acres of abandoned
railroad right-of-way between Garland Avenue and South School Ave to the University of
Arkansas for $82,300 in conjunction with expansion of the "Genesis Center". Income from this
transaction will go toward the purchase of the Meredith property on Nonamaker Street.
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August 6, 2002
Page 2 of 35
RESOLUTION 118-02 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
GARLAND AVE: A resolution approving an agreement with the Arkansas Highway and
Transportation Department regarding design and funding for the replacement of the South
Garland Avenue Bridge.
RESOLUTION 119-02 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
McGOODWIN, WILLIAMS AND YATES: A resolution awarding the engineering contract to
the firm of McGoodwin, Williams and Yates for the Water Transmission and Distribution
System Master Plan Study in the not -to -exceed amount of $205,000.00 and approval of an
engineering contract contingency in the amount of $20,000.00.
RESOLUTION 120-02 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
Alderman Jordan moved to approve the Consent Agenda. Alderman Marr seconded.
Upon roll call the motion carried 7-0. Alderman Davis was absent.
OLD BUSINESS:
RZN 02-15.00: An ordinance approving rezoning request RZN 02-15.00 as submitted by Dave Jorgensen
of behalf of Lan -y Garriott for property located north of Persimmon Street and west of 46th Street. The
property is zoned A-1, Agricultural and contains approximately 57.82 acres. The request is to rezone to
R-1, Low Density Residential; and to accept the attached Bill of Assurance. The ordinance was left on
the second reading at the July 16, 2002 meeting.
Alderman Reynolds: Mayor, Mr. Jorgensen wants this item tabled
Mr. Jorgensen: For vanous reasons, we'd like to table this tonight, the people are on vacation,
and we're trying to get organized. We're trying to get our information on the traffic count.
We're getting ready to have another meeting with the neighborhood out there in that area, we
Just haven't had a chance to have that meeting to meet with them another time. For that reason
we'd like to table it for tonight and we'd like to get back on the agenda two weeks from tonight.
We'll try to have that meeting next week.
Mayor Coody: So you want to table this until two weeks from now?
Mr. Jorgenson: Correct.
Alderman Bechard: I was just curious if you had set that meeting up with the neighborhood
yet?
Mr. Jorgensen: No, I haven't. I've been waiting to make sure that I can get the owner available
too.
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August 6, 2002
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Alderman Jordan moved to table this item until the next meeting. Alderman Reynolds
seconded. Upon roll call the motion carried 7-0. Alderman Davis was absent.
OUTDOOR MUSIC ESTABLISHMENT: An ordinance adding a definition of "Outdoor
Music Establishment" to Chapter 151 Definitions of the Unified Development Ordinance and
adding Section 163.30 to the Unified Development Ordinance to make an Outdoor Music
Establishment a Conditional Use in specified zoning districts. The ordinance was left on the
second reading at the July 16, 2002 meeting.
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' Alderman Santos moved to suspend the Jules and go. to the third`and final, reading.
Alderman Marr seconded. Upon roll call the motion carried 7-0. Alderman Davis was
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absent:
City Attorney Williams read the ordinance.
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Greer Gamble: The City of: Fayetteville -already has the tight to control any disturbance of.the
peace no matter what the cause, noise, litter, traffic, etc. I've been in the music business for over
40 years. I'm curious as to how this ordinance applies to me at a private party, if it does at all?
It is my understanding that if I were to create a problem ata private party and the neighbors
called the police, do they not have the authority to tell me to turn it off or turn it down.
Mayor Coody: Yes.
Greer Gamble: Under disturbance of the peace. I have been in the music business for the last
40 years and I have not had the police called on me. My sound system pushes over 1.100 watts.
Are we still going to regulate the size, number, location, so on and speakers? Is that still in the
ordinance?
Mayor Coody: Now you're asking about a private performance in a private home?
Greer Gamble: I also use that same sound system in the outdoor venues here in Fayetteville. I
have a lot of questions in that regard. It seems to me that if you wanted to control the noise
spilling over into community the very simple solution to that would be to limit the size of the
venue that you are willing to license in what should be buffer areas around the entertainment
zone. I think that if you acknowledge that there is an entertainment area in Fayetteville and
zoned accordingly that a lot of these problems would go away. It occurs to me that the only
solution to this is to band outdoor music and the only solution to the problem of smoking in
restaurants is to band smoking. It's not the size of your equipment; but how you use it that
counts. The music is going to spill over into the neighborhoods, so the only way you are going to
solve the problem rather than just strangle it is to just band the outdoor music and be done with
it.
Ms. Marinoni: Spoke on the ordinance.
Pat Beason: Spoke in favor of the ordinance.
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August 6, 2002
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Jo Bennett: Spoke in favor of the ordinance.
Alderman Marr: Being the person I guess who sponsored this; I want to make one last
comment that hopefully make clear what my intentions were on this ordinance. Some of the
comments that I've heard tonight, are a proactive discussion; one was co -existence with
neighborhoods, which I do think is important in this area. I see the benefit of a conditional use
whether that was a dance hall, or outdoor music establishment, or a use that is not otherwise
allowed by right which we have sometimes with office and residential and so forth, as a means
of getting factual public information, co -existence versus a prohibiting attitude from people
simply out of fear. I also think that it gives us a culture of collaboration and communication as
opposed to antagonistic conflict. I've said it through the entire process that my goals have never
been to kill outdoor music on Dickson Street, to not have outdoor music establishments. I've
traveled the U.S. and the world and I've certainly experienced what I would consider to be good
outdoor bars. I think it's so difficult for me to understand how having a front end discussion is
not a good thing in this process. I think there have been some good points of discussion brought
up over these three readings in the last six weeks. l think we do need to look at entertainment
districts if we're in fact going to label things, they should be labeled formally and there should be
discussions on that. I don't think that the discussions should be limited to Dickson Street
because there may be other areas of town that are also entertainment in nature. It is still our
mission today to protect and improve the quality of life by listening to and serving the people
with faimess, to me this is an issue of looking at fairness to everyone involved in this particular
area. I'd like to thank the Council for your consideration and understand the spirit by which it is
intended and it is not to be another obstacle simply to keep something from happening. If
anything, it is to encourage that when it happens it happens in a good manner with good
discussion on the front end.
Mayor Coody: This went before the Ordinance Review Committee didn't it?
Alderman Young: Yes.
Mayor Coody: What was the consensus of that committee?
Alderman Young: We passed it on to the Council.
Mayor Coody: Okay.
Alderman Bechard: Conceptually, I couldn't agree with Mr. Marr. Unfortunately I can't
support the conditional use because I go back to the concept of upfront discussion, I absolutely
support that. Creating an environment where people can talk on their phones and sleep at night,
as we've talked about before is a concern; I absolutely support that as well. So conceptually I
couldn't agree more. My issue is I disagree with the tactic, I think that a conditional use is not
the right approach. As I understood, and this is something Tim said two weeks ago, "typically a
conditional use is used when someone is asking to do something outside of an ordinance", in this
case no one is asking to, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, nobody is asking to do anything
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August b, 2002
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outside the ordinance. I struggle with why we are putting a conditional. use in placewhenno one
is asking to be outside the ordinance. A second issue that have with this is that I'm concerned
about the Planning Commission they are not experts when it .comes to sound, are we going to
give them the training? We're asking people to be experts that currently are not experts. Some
folks have said that by creating this conditional use it's going to solve our problem, I don't think
that that's the case. The .Planning Commission could say put up some walls and turn the
speakers a certain way and great, two years from then the business changes 'ownership. They
decide to take down those walls, they've changed their speakers and they turn their music up, the
conditional use isn't going to stop that, what's going to stop that is the sound ordinance. 'I hear
again tonight that over the last six years the sound ordinance has been great and thank you for
that, I -agree. If the sound ordinance isn't great, we need to handle the sound ordinance, but
that's the reasons why I can't support this. I -want it to be clear and on the record that I'm
absolutely for an upfront discussion and sure don't want people who live down there to move,
that is absolutely not what needs to occur here.
Alderman Marr:- The tactical decision to go with conditional use was because you can't write
an ordinance that handles every situation that you might encounter in looking at an outdoor
music establishment. Another benefit of a conditional use is so that you are allowed to look at
things on a situational basis under the circumstances that are in front of you.
Alderman Santos: Mr. Gamble pointed out that, I didn't think about when we're talking about
the size and direction and power of the PA system, is that the owners of the outdoor music
establishments, most of them don't have their own PA systems. The bands bringthem in or they
get a sound professional like Mr. Gamble to bring in his PA, so how do we regulate that. I mean
I kind of thought of it as being a built in part of the building but it's really not.
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Alderman Young: But it is the owner that has to regulate that.
Alderman Santos: The owner will have to agree he is going to manage the sound crew or band
or who ever brings in a PA.
Alderman Young: To maintain his conditional use.
Alderman Santos: Okay.
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. Alderman Thiel: My initial concern about this ordinance was that it might have a negative
affect on the entertainment business, but after:listeningto everything;.trying to listen with an
open mind, I don't think that's the case. I think it will be positive -for both the business and the
community. I think it will enable the businesses .to establish .a good relationship with ;the
adjoining neighborhoods upfront. ';I, of course, also think it's important for.us to remember that
we have conditional use for dance halls and this has been very useful to us in'the past to deal
with issues where conditional use has been given to a dance hall. Without having this course of
action our hands would have been tied in some situations. I do want the public to know that we
didn't eliniinate the $1,000.00 bonding requirement -that we added (C) (1), (C) (2) and (C) (4) to
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August 6, 2002
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this ordinance, and also the conditional uses now can be appealed to the City Council if they are
denied at the Planning Commission level.
Alderman Reynolds: Mayor I'll abstain on voting tonight In the six years on the Planning
Commission, and this is my fourth year on the Council, I've never voted on anything that related
to Dickson Street and I'm not going to start voting tonight. But I think people need to think
about this because in the 15 years that I've owned a business and the 40 years I've been at
Dickson and West Streets, in the last two years I've seen a lot of businesses change hands on
Dickson Street. So we're either going to be an entertainment district or we've got to change it to
commercial use, one or the other, we both can't make it.
Alderman Thiel: I definitely agree that this Council does need, or the Planning Commission
needs to have some direction to establish an entertainment district. There is also another
business that is leaving Dickson, and basically the bookstore for the same reason. It's becoming
strictly an entertainment area. We probably do need to designate that at some time but I don't
think it needs to be added into this conditional use ordinance that we're looking at right now. I
do think that it's something we need to address in the near future because something similar to
this can come up again.
Alderman Marr: I completely concur that, that needs to be a discussion, and I think it has a lot
of components to it. We've referred to zoning as entertainment zoning, but I've read R-1, R-2,
R-3, C-1, and C-2 and I don't see entertainment descriptions in any of those definitions. I think
it would be appropriate so that quite frankly the discussion of the people should be at the point of
zoning whether that zoning for that use is most appropriate at that time. I think it's a
combination of both zoning and our Master 20-20 Plan, did we designate entertainment areas
within that and should it be different. We certainly didn't look at that when we reviewed the 20-
20 Plan in 2001 and I think the idea of an entertainment overlay is an item that requires a lot of
discussion, just like the Overlay District off of 1-540 required a lot of discussion and public
input. I don't thmk it is appropriate to do it within this ordinance. I'm not saying that I would
support that we have it, but I certainly support that we have discussion around it.
Alderman Young: On Dickson Street, unless you have retail along with the bars, that's not a
good situation, to maintain Dickson Street as a viable economic engine so to speak, you have to
have the mix. The retail is leaving, there are reasons they are leaving, but if there is a discussion
on an entertainment district, I think that would be a good opportunity to put things in that district
that would encourage retail so that you could do two things at once. You could establish the
entertainment district but also put some kind of incentives or some kind of breaks or something
for retail which would maintain the mix. That's the only way you're going to maintain economic
viability down there.
Alderman Marr: It would be nice to see it viable between 8 and 5 also.
Alderman Jordan: When it went to the Ordinance Review there was a lot of compromises that
went down. The $1,000 bond concerned me and we did away with that. I think this is going to
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August 6, 2002
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cause more upfront conversation between the development community and the owners down
there. And I think I'll support it.
Mayor Coody asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the ordinance passed 5-1.
Alderman Santos, Jordan, Thiel, Young and Marr voting yes. Alderman Bechard voted
no: Alderman Reynolds abstained. Alderman Davis was absent.
ORDINANCE 4409 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
RAZE AND REMOVAL: A resolution approving a raze and removal of a house at 1200 S.
Roberts as per Ordinance 3948. The item was s tabled at the July 18, 2002 -meeting.
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City Attorney Williams: Actually I've talked with the person that purchased this property; they
have done a lot of work cleaning up the outside, andi think they are now taking the house down.
I don't think it's totally finished at this point and time and they would like to ask us to table it for
another 30 days. At that point in time I'm sure that it will be totally taken care of and then we
can just vote the resolution down. s -
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Alderman Thiel moved to table this�item-until the September 3, 2002 City Council meeting.
Alderman Reynolds seconded. Upon roll call the motion carried 7-0. Alderman Davis was
absent.
NEW BUSINESS:
RZN 02-17.00: An ordinance approving rezoning request RZN 02-17.00 as submitted by Dave
Jorgensen on behalf of Bleaux Bames and Sam Mathias for property located south of' Deane
Street, west of Sang Avenue and east of Porter Road. The property is zonedR-1, Low Density
Residential and contains approximately 21.03 acres. The request is to rezone to RMF -6, Low
Density Multi -family Residential.
City Attorney Williams read the ordinance.
Alderman Jordan -moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Alderman
Thiel seconded. Upon- roll call the motion carried 7-0. Alderman Davis was absent.
City Attorney Williams read the ordinance.
Alderman Santos: The president of the neighborhood association asked me that we keep this
on the second reading tonight. The neighborhood is pretty much behind it. I don't think we'll
have any trouble with passing it at the next meeting. I -would add that this has been discussed
quite a bit already. The neighborhood association has met with the developers, they've talked
about it and everybody's come to an agreement. I stood all alone and supported rezoning of this
property and I have met a lot of nice people in the Sang Neighborhood Association since then.
I'd still support this for the same reasons I supported the other one. But this one is much less
objectionable to the neighbors and I think we can make everybody happy with this one.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
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Alderman Jordan: Yes, I've sat in on some of the meetings as well and I think that they have
come to real solutions to whatever problems they did have. I think it is a very good development
too.
SOLID WASTE ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL: A resolution authorizing an increase in Solid
Waste and Recycling to permit an additional driver.
Gary Dumas: This is funded through user fees, those who'd be using the roll off services would
pay for this. It would give us the ability to expand service and to continue to grow incrementally
that business line.
Alderman Thiel: Are you going to discuss the memo that was given to us? We need to do
something about the commercial waste situation before we add someone at this time. If we're
actually reducing some of our commercial at this time, maybe you could bnng us up to date a
little bit more on everything.
Gary Dumas: I think the direction that we're headed over the past, since the discussion on July
9`h, there has been serious confusion and ambiguity among some of the other service providers
on exactly what the discussion was about. Historically since probably about 1959 the city has
had an ordinance in place which prohibited private waste haulers from doing business in the city,
unless they were permitted by the City Council. That ordinance was strenuously enforced the
last several years, I think primarily because the city didn't have any roll off activities that was all
provided by third parties. Because the commercial business that we did have the 2 yards, 8 yards
plus the cans that are out there, the 95 or 64 gallon cans provided a user subsidy from the
commercial side of the operation to the residential side, that subsidy next year will be about
$568,000, that was in the report that I gave you on July the 9th. This year that subsidy is greater
because we haven't yet incorporated in any of the efficiency that will be going into effect with
the new automated system. If those commercial customers in that small commercial class are
allowed to go to other service providers, that is going to create, very quickly I would imagine a
situation where the city doesn't provide any commercial waste in that class of customer, Steve
Davis is here and he can confirm this. This would mean that probably by the middle of next year
the reserve cash that is required to be in the reserve account of the Solid Waste Fund would be
below recommended standards. If you disagree with the memo, the City Council has a couple of
choices, either the Solid Waste Fund would become a tax supported fund as it was prior to 1998,
or there will have to be rate increases to make up that estimated one half million dollar loss that
we will be suffering not having that cross users subsidy from that commercial class of customers.
Alderman Thiel: Well if we already had this ordinance in effect, at what point did we stop.
You explained why we weren't enforcing it because we did not have.
Gary Dumas: We never stopped enforcing the ordinance, what happened was that there was
some confusion. Maybe I'm understating the confusion that occurred on the private side but up
until July 9th there was an understanding between the private waster haulers, the city, the
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August 6, 2002
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commercial customers in this class 2 to 8 yards, and the cans, that the city was the sole provider
of the service.
Mayor Coody: City Council meeting?
Gary Dumas: The City Council meeting and the discussion that occurred, • a private waste
hauler placed a container at new business on Millennium and Crossover. We contacted that
waste hauler, told them that the ordinance was in place, which they knew because some of our
former employees are their current employees, they refused to move it. They said that based on
the Council discussion of July 9th that it was an open market in the entire commercial sector. We
had more than one discussion with them•with the same result. We finally convinced the owner
that the ordinance was effective, and their container was removed and ours was put 'in place that
was the week of the Council. meeting on July 9th. Over the weekend and in the last couple of
days this has been kind of an increasing thing, four businesses which I mention in the
background there, have located at their facilities private waste hauler's container. I think there is
another 4 or 5 that are in place as of today. If you read the comments from those businesses and
if you want to mention them you can but I don't know that there is. a need to, they are very
confused, and they feel that what they've been told by the private waste hauler is that the
ordinance is not effective. They are saying that if the ordinance is effective the city should make
a decision and enforce the ordinance, we have been atteinpting to do that. The reason for the
memo is to tell you that we're going to do it more aggressively; since conversations have not
resulted in them removing their containers we'll begin tomorrow issuing citations through the
police department.
Alderman Reynolds: Mayor, we had a lady that ran our Solid Waste Division and a lot of folks
don't know that she left and went to another business and when she did it kind of left us with a
period when we didn't have any one out there to watch the hen house. When she went to that
new business she started doing the opposite of what she did when she worked for the City of
Fayetteville, when she was here she didn't allow anybody to come in here and do this. What this
Council needs to do tonight is to tell Mrs. Hill and Mr. Dumas that we're going to enforce this
ordinance and we're behind them 100%, and let them pursue this and make the people pay it and
go by it. We want our people in this city to throwtheir trash out and we want them to recycle,
we're kind of encouraging recycling at the force. These people coming in here and carrying the
trash out from these other companies are not recycling, that's not what we want, we want
recycling. We want to save space. at the landfill and we want our ordinances obeyed and
followed, so I think we need to do that tonight. Please Just give them that kindness.
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Alderman.Bechard: -Why would these businesses be going to this other trash company versus
the city? Is it pricing? a
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Gary Dumas: Absolutely. A $568,000 subsidy that this -class of commercial user'pays into the
system which is being used to subsidy the residential rates. Based on that our cost of business is
beginning $568,000 in the negative and when you add the cost of business plus that $568,000 it
means that I would hope that any reasonable private business would be able to make profit.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 10 of 35
Our cost of business is probably very similar to their cost of business except for labor charges,
then with a $568,000 hill to climb before you get there its fairly easy for them to cut our rates.
Alderman Bechard: Is It that we are choosing to overcharge our businesses so that we can
subsidize the residential and thereby putting our businesses at a competitive disadvantage. They
have to pay a higher cost to do business in Fayetteville because you are forcing them to use a
higher cost service than if they were in another city around here and is that putting them at a
competitive disadvantage?
Gary Dumas: I'm not going to give you the answer that you want. I'm going to say that yes the
private businesses are paying a premium for the services they are getting but that is not unusual
with businesses or with communities that provide solid waste services to both residential and
commercial consumers. Typically there is a cross user's subsidy whenever you have both
segments of the market. I think previous Councils made that decision here, that's probably part
of the reason for this ordinance so that they could maintain a reduced residential rate. Although
our commercial base is only 1100, 1200 customers they have the ability or have had the ability
historically, to provide that subsidy because they also live here too typically, so they save the
money at the home rather than at the business.
Mayor Coody: From what I understand and from what we talked about, there's basically two
different commercial containers, two different kinds of commercial services right now. The
small container, the two to eight yard which is what we are talking about right now versus the
roll offs which is the big containers. The roll off containers is not part of this conversation right
now, we're just talking about the two to eight yard and that's traditionally what the city picked
up and we've had a monopoly on that.
Gary Dumas: Correct.
Mayor Coody: The last time the City Council met there was discussion about privatization and
private enterprise and being competitive that was inferred to me. Then, all of the sudden the
small commercial container business market was open for them to come mto and that's the
market that subsidizes our residential rates, according to the reports we have seen, between $4
and $5 per month, per residential customer. Is that right?
Gary Dumas: At the current rate structure of $9.25. When we go to the next system we are
going to be much more efficient than that but right now that is about the subsidy.
Mayor Coody: Basically, what the city is looking at doing is maintaining the status quo on our
small two to eight yard containers. That's basically to stay where we were before the July 9th
meeting, go back to where we were because that's what makes the system balance more and
that's what we're operating under. You asked about competitiveness in commercial pricing, I
know that when we started doing some roll off containers and we looked at the prices of what
Waste Management and some of these other enterprises where charging and then we came in
considerably under that because we were able to cover our costs and make a little bit of money
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 11 of3S
on top of that. When the city' got into the roll off business we were able to drastically reduce the
fees that commercial customers had to pay. Is that accurate?
Gary Dumas: Yes, that's correct.
Mayor Coody: Roughly, how many dollars are we're talking about here?
Gary Dumas: I gave a memo to the Council who was here in January that gave a real life
scenario with an existing business in town that had service through one of the private waste
haulers; our bid would have saved them $350 a month, if they could have taken our bid but the
• private waste hauler enforced the contract that they had with them.
Mayor Coody: That was with the roll off container. But we have actually lowered the prices
for businesses using roll off containers,. so we have been able to do well for businesses here and
make them even more competitive by saving them $350 bucks a month which is 34,200 a year
a • a
which is pretty substantial.
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'Gary Dumas: The entire thought processibehind getting into. the roll ?off business was so that
we could spread our cost over a larger base, the overhead costs and hopefully'reducethrough that
roll off market sector, and put more into the system so that we could maintain or reduce the rates.
nvarnmcn}c just don't do 4hat i t� `"'! $
You never reduce I don't think; g
Mayor Coody: We did sewer tax.
Gary Dumas: But at least try to maintain rates or slow the rate of growth of those other rates.
Alderman Thiel: I think that the mayor has explained it real well. I think that our discussion at
the July 9`" meeting was about the large roll off container, we were not discussing our current
commercial process at all. If I said anything that lead Ms. Zotti or Roll Off to think that I was
advocating that they ignore our ordinances or that the commercial businesses in Fayetteville
ignore the ordinances that we have in place, I certainly apologize for that. I certainly think that
we have to continue what we have and we have an ordinance in place to do so.
Alderman Marr: Mayor it offends me that anyone who sat in that meeting and listened to that
discussion could interpret commercial, the eight yard versus the roll off, there was a clear
distinction between this and that. This is someone in my opinion that's Just trying to fly in the
face of the city and force us into a decision. I certainly support us making sure that we get our
commercial business that we never had a discussion about back and make :it very clear the
ordinances of the city.
Gary Dumas: Our intent is to bring you something to discuss at the next meeting concerning
the larger containers also.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 12 of 35
Mayor Coody: Basically we want to continue to maintain the status that we had before the 9th
which is we're going to maintain our business with the small commercial carrier, small
commercial carts. Is that right?
Gary Dumas: Yes, and we will be upping the aggressiveness in which we enforce that, if it
requires that.
Mayor Coody: Basically, are you asking for a consensus from the Council on this item or is this
just an informational item.
Gary Dumas: I kind of wanted someone to bnng it up so that we could have this discussion
publicly tonight.
Alderman Marr: I just wanted to make a comment about this additional head count position.
When you look at these numbers the fact that you reduce overtime 459 hours for roughly an
additional $9,000 in overall payroll costs, you can take one on the large customer side to three to
four customers of a smaller construction site and have a return on that instantly. It allows us the
capacity to go to 25 service calls per week to increase our business. To me it's a no brainier that
this is a good cost move and I appreciate you looking at it for us.
Mayor Coody: The Solid Waste Department in operating with more efficiency and operating
much more cost effectively we have reduced, thanks to new management and to a new attitude in
the Solid Waste Department, we have reduced tum over by 75% since 1999 which is substantial
decrease in turnover and also the amount of money that we were paying out in worker's comp
claims about this same time period was through the roof which put us into a higher nsk pool with
worker's comp. We've reduced the dollar amounts that we've paid out for worker's comp
claims by 50%, those are substantial numbers and I just want to thank the Solid Waste
Department for working so hard to turn this department around. You've done a very good job.
Alderman Reynolds: We've got a real good management team out there and I'm proud of them
also.
Gary Dumas: A large part of those reductions in tumover and in injuries is the attitude of the
employees and that's reflective by the appreciation that they get from the Council and from their
administrator.
Gary Lowery: Commended the staff at Solid Waste. I understand the City of Fayetteville has
its own exclusive franchise for hauling its own waste. Why does this not include all aspects of
it?
Mayor Coody: One of the things you asked about is about handling all aspects of waste. Were
you talking about the roll off containers?
Gary Lowery: I'm talking about all of them.
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City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
. i Page 13•of3S
Mayor Coody: I think pretty much roll 'off is the one big item that we don't handle very well
and the reason is because we don't have the manpower or equipment. We're beginning to get
into that line.
Gary Lowery: You don't have to get into that line. You can contract out with some body else
and have them provide this service for the city. You don't have to provide the manpower and the
equipment. You can contract that out to someone else and have them do it, including the roll off
division.
Sharon Davidson: I agree with what Mr. Lowery is saying, although he's saying do it from the
business point as financial. I'm asking you to do itfor the green, the environment, the right thing
for everybody to do; I'd rather you all have control of our trash. Please take care of our trash
and maintain control of it.
Alderman Young: What is the resolution? What are we being asked to pass?
City Attorney Williams: To add one driver to the staffing levels for the Solid Waste Division.
Mayor Coody: Of course, it's going to be paid for out of the Enterprise Fund not the General
Fund so this has nothing to do with the latest one cent sales tax ballot the issue that we've had
lately.
Alderman Santos moved to pass the resolution. Alderman Marr seconded. Upon roll call
the motion carried 7-0. Alderman Davis was absent.
RESOLUTION 121-02 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
MCCLELLAND ENGINEERING: A resolution authorizing Change Order No. 1 to the
engineering services agreement with McClelland Engineering allowing for additional public
participation activities for the Wilson Springs Business Park extending time frames established
in the contract and adding the amount of $32,388.47.
Gary Dumas: I hope you got the detailed per hour breakdown by task. I think that, that could
answer most of your questions if it doesn't I'll try to address them. There are two parts to that
request; one is for the work that has already been done as part of public participation, that's
approximately $16,000. There is a second portion which is anticipated work in the public
participationarea that may or may not be required as the project moves forward. You know that
part if we're going tohave continuing aggressive public participation process in this project as
necessary but -it's the Council's decision on whether that portion' is necessary or not:,.....
t; •' ii i l
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m..i
Alderman Thiel: Under the original January 25°i contract, the breakdown was preparation for
and presentations at public meetings that amount was $4,4611which they deducted that amount
from here. I would like an explanation and I'm still confused,,it\was`also .$5,280 with EGIS and
that was for planning public meetings, the team planning and coordination of meetings that's
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City Council Mating
August 6, 2002
Page 14 of 35
$6,875. Why is that not shown in here some where as a deduct. What was that for? Was that
not for coordination of meetings?
Mr. Tarvin: Our contract is a cost not to exceed contract and if that was part of it then that
would be deducted automatically. Our billing will only be what we actually do.
Alderman Thiel: It's just not shown on this estimation of hours. This report that we received
for this meeting you've deducted the lesser contract amount of $4,461 but not the $6,875.
Mr. Tarvin: Part of the preparation for public meetings has to do with the platting process itself
which is not necessarily the public participation part of the work but the public meetings that are
a part of the platting.
Gary Dumas: Okay, team planning and coordination meetings. There's been a preparation of
three final options and cost estimates. Wouldn't there be some credit then due back because
down at the lower part of the contract, this is just an estimated fee breakdown, Phase I design
services that was $58,000.
Mr. Tarvin: I think I know what your question is. Would part of the work we did in this effort
have been done later on?
Alderman Thiel: Right. So that's going to come off.
Mr. Tarvin: Possibly a portion would be. There was more public participation in this than we
anticipated and that would be the additional work, some of the options we looked at would not
have been looked at, we actually looked at more than three. We looked at five to six and
narrowed it down to three that we did the cost estimates on, so there were some efforts there that
were not anticipated in the beginning. But again, our contract is bill only what you do and we
were asking for an increase in the "not to exceed" because of the scope change.
Alderman Thiel: I guess my other concern is according to this it was in response to direction
given to us by the City Council at the March 19'" meeting. I did go through the minutes and to
honest I don't see anywhere where the Council really directed all these team meetings. Mr.
Dumas stated that they were asking the Council to let them proceed with the preliminary plat
work. McClelland will come up with at least three designs which would be presented to the
Council for review; from there they would prepare a final preliminary plat. I stated that I would
like to see three proposals that showed a broad diversity. I'm not quite sure where all these five
additional team meetings with Dumas and/or EGIS were requested. I'm not saying you didn't do
them and they are accounted for fully here, but I guess that some of the summation of why it
happened or why it went beyond the initial scope of the project is the thing I'm trying to
understand.
Mr. Tarvin: From what I recall from that March I91h meeting was that there was quite a long
discussion and the people that were against the development made their presentations. It got to a
point to where the Council said can't we work together and at that point I got up and I said yes
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 15 of 35
we can meet together if that's what you want us to do, in fact I had already asked the ladies to
come over to our office and work with us. Mr. Young said and I want three alternative plans and
I want cost estimates for those three alternative plans and we said okay.
Alderman Young: EGIS contract is a subcontract to you is that correct?
Mr. Tarvin• No sir.
Alderman Young: It's a separate contract with the city:
Mr.. Tarvin: Yes.
Alderman Young: On this listing here is your preparation for the first two public meetings,
then you've got project engineer, 62 hours, is that actually the work on the project or preparation
for the meetings?
Mr. Tarvin: That was the preparation for the meetings .%
c 4 r
Alderman Young: 62 hours?
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Mr. Tarvin: Yes, sir, and preparing drawings and PowerPoint presentations.
Alderman Young: That's .what I mean you're actually working on the project putting the three
plans together. a•
Mr. Tarvin• No, not those three plans. This was getting ready for the public meetings, to
prepare maps of the wetlands of all the detail that was presented in those public meetings. That
was before the actual lay outs actually began. We made a point at those meetings to make it
clear that there was not a perceived notion involved in the design at that point, that we were
waiting for public input before we started and we were not doing design at that time.
Alderman Marr: I attended the meeting the night that this was discussed and I do believe that
there was some direction to have a meeting with environmental people, a team and I think it was
also encouraged that an overall look be taken at the project. You described who attended the
first meeting; who attended the second meeting, do you have any detail on the third, who was at
the third meeting and what actually took place at that meeting?
Gary Dumas: That was meeting in the field, .1 was there, Carol Jones was there, and some
people from the community were there.
Alderman Marr: What was the actual work product of that meeting?
Gary Dumas: The work product was to go through one of the things that McClelland had
prepared before, there was a graphic which showed the survey points that were on the property
so there would be some geographic reference on the map and on the ground: The group walked
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 16 of 35
the site primarily to understand where a variety of features were, one item was a native prairie
inside the wood area. There are two or three small detention ponds that were built by the city or
the city's contractor that is just inside of the woodland area just outside of the property, toward
the south end of the property. We tried to find out how those were built; we found out that it was
the city that did them back a few years ago. They were seen as some natural features that were
out there that should be preserved and they may need to be preserved we don't know that yet.
The work product was to make everyone more familiar with where the lines on the map were in
relation to the wetlands, the little northwest, southeast stream that runs from the Clabber Creek
into the wetland toward the middle of the property. I want to make sure that everyone is aware
where the features where that we've all been talking about. There had been some confusion of
where those features were.
Alderman Marr: There was a statement made in a letter that it was the understanding that our
role in the public participation portion of the project was to be minimal and that EGIS would
have the lead role. What I'm curious about is what dollars were in the EGIS contract, and can
we transfer those dollars into this as opposed to approving new dollars?
Gary Dumas: 1 would have to research the EGIS contract a little more than I have, the EGIS
contract is not very large, I think 55,000 or 60,000 dollars. The EGIS contract is not broken
down specifically in public participation the way the McClelland contract is but there is some
where in the neighborhood of $15,000 in their contract for public participation in a variety of
forums. I would imagine that if the project moves forward and we get into discussing mitigation
plans and options, what we are going to do after we determine what the plan is, that their public
participation activities will significantly increase. That's where the rubber is going to meet the
road when we begin talking about how we're going to do the mitigation activities on the 17 acres
or if the option is the one half acre or zero acre option then there won't be any mitigation. There
will be quite a bit of funding left over in their contract.
Alderman Marr: It doesn't make sense to me that we would ever design a contract around not
expecting to have public participation and so there's probably dollars somewhere in one of these
two. What I would like to do is to get the actual work that is being done. I've got copies like it's
an invoice, and what I am use to seeing in our business is where it actually takes the budget line
item what the charge is, the hours etc, against the contract. What I'd like to know is, is it
possible to get this with a column of what was in the original contract and then a column of the
charges that are above and beyond the contract as opposed to having it all lumped in and me
sitting here trying to figure out which is which. I think it gives us an idea of where the specific
run of times is. I have one other question and this is where I'm asking for your education, it
appears like over 300 hours of work into the public meeting component on this particular
invoice, of this what is typically the hours associated in the planning time for a meeting and does
300 seem high to you? That seemed high to me.
Gary Dumas: For the public participation?
Alderman Marr: For the preparation and presentation of public meetings.
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City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 17 of 35
Mr. Tarvin• It depends on who' is -doing it, some cities do more than:others,it seems high to me.
We came into to this thinking that it would be lower than it is. We're not sure yet how much it's
going to be. because it hasn't ended yet. It really depends on howmuchtime you want us to
spend. Some cities don't spend much time.
Alderman Marr: In the meetings that -you had planned, typically how many hours would you
associate with- one meeting?
Mr. Tarvin- If you get a billing rate of $40, then 50 x $40 is $2,000. There was about $4,000
budgeted for as I recall for public participation.
Alderman Marr: So it wouldn't be an unreal expectation if I'm seeing 300 hours to have
expected at least six meetings if I were in line with the amount of planning time.
Mr. Tarvin. What we did was we actually had eight more meetings after the March 19th
Council meeting. .
Alderman Thiel: But five of those meetings it sounds like were team meetings.
Mr. Tarvin• To get ready for the other meetings.
Alderman Thiel: With Mr. Dumas?
Mr. Tarvin: Yes ma'am
Alderman Thiel: Okay. Those weren't public meetings or were they?
Gary Dumas: No but they were in preparation.
Alderman Thiel: They weren't public meetings though and I guess by team meeting then that
would go back to the original proposal which had team planning coordination meetings $6,875
there listed for that which hadn't been shown on this that we've been given.
Alderman Marr: I was Just going to end by saying that it appears that we have documentation
on the additional cost but once again it goes back to our struggle, what's the end work product
we're getting for the dollars we're spending. We need to be more disciplined about the control; I
think public input needs to be limited in any way, in fact I think that's what makes Fayetteville,
Fayetteville. I'd like to see more direct requests that this is the meeting and this is the cost
instead of us having casual conversations about what we'd like to have three more meetings or
we'd like to have you know, X amount of things happen and okay we can do it but we don't have
at that point a number that we're talking about and then we act like we're surprised. Three
designs that we looked at, we've spent $16,000, and now we've got another $15,000 that we're
•
planning for it and I want to be a little more diligent understanding -What I'm going to get for that
$15,000. I don't want to get into the habit that the City Council is doing line items, that's. why
we have a mayor and city staff. I Y -
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 18 of 35
Alderman Jordan: I think that one of the things that concerns me that our job basically is to be
good stewards of the taxpayers' money. We came to a meeting and are told we need to come up
with $32,000 more dollars after we already have a contract for $128,000. I thought that EGIS
was going to handle most of the public meetings. Did I hear that wrong or where does this EGIS
leave off and McClelland pick up here? I thought EGIS was handling this whole public
business. Am I wrong there?
Gary Dumas: That was the initial thought in both, in the two contracts.
Alderman Jordan: And we paid them $60,000 for doing that or there about.
Gary Dumas: Well their money was primanly for the mitigation plan and getting that through
the vanous regulatory agencies and public participation process of that also. Based on the
discussions that occurred at that March 19th meeting and I believe the meeting before that, there
was a decision made, on my part I guess, that was based on some of the audience's concerns
about EGIS that it's better if they took a secondary role in the earlier public participation, in this
second round of public participation, which wasn't in their contract either though. That second
round of public participation was requested on March 19i11.
Alderman Jordan: I think in the future we should prepare a little more for more public
comment, more public participation in these meetings, especially on an issue like this. It does
concern me that we still don't know exactly how much we are going to spend.
Gary Dumas: I think as Councilman Man mentioned you'd like to have a work product that
comes out of the expenditure of public funds. Ideally you would have that. I'm not sure what
you're going to have as this project goes forward with a useable work product, a useable work
product would be an approved subdivision plat. 1 don't know if this is going to come out of this
or not no matter how much or what the effort is that is spent. Thee project is actually just
beginning to get started and we haven't even resolved yet what the design scenario is going to
be.
Mayor Coody: I've been pretty deeply involved in this project since the beginning because I
think it's important for Fayetteville that we get moving on this. I think one of the things that we
hoped for was that by having public comment and by bringing both parties together around the
table we could seek and find some kind of consensus, I've given up on that idea. So basically it's
going to be up to the Council to say this is where we're going to go one way or the other and
make a decision. But if we try to get everybody to agree on this we can spend money on this
until the cows come home and we're never going to reach that point.
Alderman Marr: So mayor are you advocating that we not look at the additional $15,000 that's
a part of this?
Mayor Coody: I don't know right now what we would get for that $15,000 any more than what
we have for the money we've spent already. Because one school of thought is we don't develop
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 19 of 35
any of that land and anything other than that is just not going to be met. So there's no middle
ground. So I just feel like we can continue to spend money on public input and public consensus
and never reach an end because I think that there will always be a persuasion saying that we
shouldn't develop any of it. And that's never going to change.
Alderman Young: Then are you advocating disbanding that committee you put together to look
at this?
Mayor Coody: No, that's a whole different deal altogether.
Alderman Young: No it's not. That's public input there.
Mayor Coody: No that's not costing us any money.
Alderman Young: But it will be when they start presenting their issue.
Mayor Coody: I'm sorry I didn't understand that.
Alderman Young: The engineers may be sitting there with the clock running.
§ 4 t t... E.s
Gary Dumas: They haven't yet. At some pointI'm sure they will be invited to make a
presentation to the Task Force.
Mayor Coody: The Task Force I think in my prospective was put together so we could have
several people, advanced people in different disciplines and areas of expertise look-at,that piece
of property. Look at what our needs are in FayettevillepArkansas and seed they couldn't make
two things come together and find out what the highest and best use of that land is.`r Carving out
100 acres of wetlands is a sensitive area in all scenarios and saving it in .perpetuity and
wondering what to do with the other 200 acres. How it should be developed for the best long
term benefit of Fayetteville.
Alderman Thiel: We did ask for three plans, and this Council has not seen three plans yet.
Mayor Coody: Hasn't that been shown?
Alderman Thiel: No, we havenot; we have not been presented any of these.
Alderman Jordan: The problem with that is that a lot of the people they don't know anything
about the plans that's already been presented.
Alderman Young: I know of one plan that was presented at the Ward 2 meeting and that was it.
It was shown and that's the last I saw of it.
Alderman Thiel: Mr. Dumas has gone out to the Chamber, to the Rotary Club, to the public;
there have been public presentations that I'm sure that's part of what we're paying for,
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 20 of 35
preparation for public meetings, as far as this Council seeing those three plans and discussing
them, no they have not.
Gary Dumas: The three plans were presented at an agenda session on the third floor, I'd have to
go back and check the date.
Alderman Thiel: We had them in front of us or we had them up on a board, where we could
hardly see them, but we never had them!
Gary Dumas: I'm not sure if you had them or not.
Alderman Young: No we didn't.
Alderman Thiel: We did not get a copy of them.
Alderman Young: Are there any cost estimates with those three plans?
Gary Dumas: Yes.
Alderman Young: Well we haven't seen those I'll guarantee you that.
Alderman Thiel: I mean if you want to start moving this forward let's start discussing
something. I mean you say you want to move it forward but it's not moving forward.
Mayor Coody: I could have sworn that we saw all these plans in front of the Council at the
agenda session and all that material was available at that time.
Mayor Coody: Well if the plans were shown up on the wall, if I could see them I'm assuming
that other people could see them.
Alderman Thiel: We Just looked at them on the wall but we can't study them?
Alderman Young: We want something we can take home with us.
Mayor Coody: Okay. Would you please print up some 8 %1 x 1 l's so we can distribute them to
the City Council.
Gary Dumas: With the cost estimates, yes.
Mayor Coody: Budget about $15,000 for that will you?
Gary Dumas: Actually I'll do that so we don't have to have the engineer to do that.
Alderman Thiel: Thank you.
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City Council Meeting
*August 6, 2002
Page21 of35
Mayor Coody: You have been going to. thee meetings with;the task torce and the :engineers
those haven't cost us a dime.
Gary Dumas: No they have not.
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Alderman Thiel: I think that's critical that we have those meetings.
Alderman Jordan: We did talk about that with some of the environmental community and they
talked to me and said that they did not have any input on those three plans.
Mayor Coody: Mr. Tarvin will you please address that, that the environmental community had
no input on the three plans.
Mr. Tarvin: We had three meetings. We had two meetings in our office and one meeting on
site.
Mayor Coody: Who attended those meetings? Do you know right offhand?
Mr. Tarvin• Yes.
Alderman Thiel: -It's right here.
Alderman Santos: It was on the government channel.
Mr. Tarvin: The first meeting was Mayor Dan Coody, Director Gary Dumas, Alderman Cyrus
Young, Fran Alexander, Jeff Erf and Tom McKinney, and the second meeting Director Gary
Dumas, Don Bunch of the Planning Commission, Andrea Radwell and Tom McKinney, others
were invited but -those are the ones that came.
Alderman Jordan: So you're saying that the environmental community did see those plans.
Mr. Tarvin: Yes, sir. They helped develop them.
Mayor Coody: When I was there they were helping point and outline.
Mr. Tamil- We were working over the work drawings.
Mayor Coody: These plans from what I experienced came from
basically teamwork from those folks, Mr. Tarvin, and Carol.
Mr. Tarvin: I have copies of the cost estimates right here if you'd
copies of them.
Mayor Coody: Chris could you make some -copies of these.;
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a partnership arrangement,
like to have them and make
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City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 22 of 35
Mr. Tarvin: I have one color copy of each of the plans.
Alderman Thiel: They have not been provided to the Alderman.
Alderman Santos: I was wondering if we should bother to waste paper on them. Their cost
estimate for the public input was 500% more than what work they've already done and they want
to charge twice as much as that again. Didn't we give a pretty stern warning to McClelland not
too long ago about doing work that wasn't authorized and then expecting us to pay for them and
we said we'll pay you this time but this is the last time.
Mr. Tarvin: No, sir.
Alderman Santos: Not McClelland. It was McGoodwin, Williams and Yates.
Alderman Jordan: It was a different firm but yes we did.
Alderman Santos: So is this the first warning for McClelland now. I mean why do we bother
with contracts if we're going to pay them whatever they can come back and ask for.
Mr. Tarvin: May I answer that question please. First of all we did not exceed our contract
amount; our contract amount is $128,000.00. What we did was exceed an estimated portion for a
particular part of that contract, but it was at your direction that we did that.
Alderman Santos: By a factor of five times as much, more than five times as much and really
you say it's going to take ten times as much as your original estimate to do that one part of the
job. Lioneld and I were under the impression that EGIS was going to that.
Mayor Coody: I will say as far as EGIS goes, if you remember the meeting that I remember,
EGIS was basically not well received. It was clear to me that there was bad blood between a lot
of the folks in the room and EGIS, and if EGIS was involved then there was not going to be any
kind of decent conversation and I think that's why we decided to let someone else handle this,
that had a better relationship with the people.
Alderman Santos: Well shouldn't we have amended the contract at that point rather than
waiting until after they do more work without any authorization?
Alderman Jordan: That's what I'm thinking.
Mr. Tarvin: The problem is that we don't know how much to amend it by, we still don't know.
At the time we were asked to do that we went forward knowing that we were not going to exceed
our contract amount but we were doing it at your request. At this point to be honest with you we
don't think you should spend anymore money on this, because we agree with the mayor. We
don't think its getting any further, but since we don't know how much effort you want us to do,
we don't know how much to ask for.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002 .
Page 23 of 35
Alderman Santos: We can have plenty of public comment without having to pay engineers to
sit in on the meetings. So don't we pursue public comment, free public comment?
Alderman Jordan: I agree. We can get a room somewhere.
Alderman Thiel: I agree.
Alderman Reynolds: How are you going to answer their questions? We don't know where
they are at and what they are doing. The last _meeting Mr. Dumas had the impact group was
talking about selling it to the public school or to the university. Why are we spending more
money on this, I don't think anybody wants to do .anything with it. I think it's a dead in the
water subject. I think we need to drop it until somebody comes to us and tells us:
Mayor Coody: Just this last week Ihad one national major telecommunications firrn ask if
we're going to do anything out there, I basically have them on hold. Another outfit is interested,
it's nota technology based firm, it would be an entertainment based firm, but there is interest.
Alderman Jordan: There's that entertainment district.
Alderman Reynolds: Entertainment district.
Mayor Coody: I basically told them that they probably wouldn'tbe a"good marriage for what
has been envisioned for that property.' We get interest on that property all'tlie time but I,don't
know what to tell them because I'm saying well its open ended.
Alderman Reynolds: Maybe we need to tum it over to a real estate firm:with that fiber optic
cable in the ground and let them sale it and let's get out of land business.
A! ` 1 S.r. •.. _ z Y..
Mayor Coody: Is that a motion?' Wt. i a ,
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Alderman Reynolds: I think we'll wait until this committee comes back and gives us the final
on it. It maybe the next motion we make.
Alderman Thiel: We have now had an appraisal on it you said, can this Council see that? We
have not seen the appraisal.
Mayor Coody: Gary you what to see if you can make some copies of that for the Council?
Gary Dumas: I'll get that out to them tomorrow. .
Mayor Coody: Thank you,
Alderman Thiel: We find out these things via the public that's interested. They're emailing us
to let us know that this information has been given but.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 24 of 35
Mayor Coody: Will you do a better job Gary in getting all this information to the Council.
Gary Dumas: Yes I will.
Mayor Coody: Thank you very much. And I'll try as well.
Alderman Thiel: Thank you.
Alderman Marr moved to approve a resolution for the $16,927.47 that was owed, of
charges that we have spent according to the detail that has been provided to us but not for
the $32,388.47. That we look at our director Gary to evaluate the EGIS contract to see if
there's any funds in that for a public meeting that we want to move over, and if we need to
go above those amounts in either of the cases after that. Alderman Reynolds seconded...
Once we know what work product that we are getting then maybe we can have a discussion
about whether we want to spend $15,000 for what that would be. But today I can't get there.
Alderman Santos: I'll probably vote for it but I want to add that no more consultants should be
doing unauthorized work and expecting us to pay them in the future.
Mayor Coody: I'm sure that their perspective was that they were authorized.
Alderman Santos: We gave McGoodwin, Williams & Yates a free shot. Let's give McClelland
one.
Mayor Coody: This Council authorized them to do public meetings; they were authorized to go
forward. We didn't say do three public meetings or do 20 public meetings and only spend this
amount of money. This Council told them to make something happen and they've been trying.
Alderman Santos: We only wanted to spend $4,461.00 on it, not $21,388.00.
Alderman Jordan: That's correct.
Alderman Santos: That was pretty clear.
Alderman Bechard: I think you made a great point there. It's something that we, both Mr.
Marr and Kevin have called for, that when we ask for additional work we need to cost justify the
work so that we're all clear on what we're asking for and the cost implications. I do think that
based on what I've heard you say that the City Council asked you to do additional work, we
should have been clearer. That's something we need to be thinking about in the future, that we
ask "how much does that cost?"
Mayor Coody: So the motion is to approve the $16,927.47 that is owed.
Ms. Davidson: Spoke on the project.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 25 of 35
s, r
Mr. Tarvin. We actually had 69 hours approximately in preparation for three meetings, roughly
69 hours in preparation of drawings before the meetings. We had about 13 actual hours spent at
the three meetings. We had 157 hours of engineering design and `cost estimating of the three
plans .once they had been selected, so most of the cost is in the cost estimates. 1We had to -do a
fairly substantial level of design. I personally laid out all the water and sewer systems. I
calculated all the invert elevations and all manholes so that we could give you a good cost
estimate for the three options, and then we had the street lay out and the drainage structures. It's
not like we're billing 300 -hours per meeting or something.
Ms. Moorman: Spoke on the project.
Jeff Erf: Spoke on the project:
Mr. Robert Ferrell: Spoke on the project.
Mayor Coody: At the beginning of this I really had high hopes that we in Fayetteville,
Arkansas could show that we could do a business development in an environmentally sensitive
way where we could preserve a good portion of the land and do a very environmentally sensitive
development in a developable part, and find common ground where the environmentally
community and the business community could work together. We'll continue to have
environmental endangeradation until businesses realize that the environment is something that
can be worked with and should be worked with in order to pursue and protect it for all our
benefits. I'm disappointed that Fayetteville is not leading the charge to show that the business
environment and natural environment can work together.
Mayor Coody asked shall the resolution pass. ' Upon roll call the resolution passed 6-1.
Alderman Bechard, Santos, Reynolds, Thiel, Young and Marr voting yes. Alderman
Jordan voting no. Alderman Davis was absent.
RESOLUTION 122-02 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
PRUNING AND TREE -REMOVAL: A resolution authorizing the mayor and staff to work
with local public utility companies to seek long-term solutions to the problems arising from the
pruning and removal of trees near overhead lines.
Pete Heinzelmann: Voiced his concern about the drastic clearing of trees along our city streets
and in our yards. He would like to see the city and AEP; the power company, sit down soon and
work out some acceptable method of trimming around power lines. He would also like to see at
least some of the lines put underground. He hopes that Mayor Coody and the City Council will
seriously considerstartinga program to bury utility lines.
City Council Meiling
August 6, 2002
Page 26 of 35
Mayor Coody: Thank you very much. You mentioned Greg Boettcher; one of the reasons that I
hired him for this position was because of his extensive background in electrical utility work, so
he would be able to help us with this kind of job.
City Attorney Williams read the resolution.
Alderman Young: I'd like to say that I have a problem with the resolution as it is read right
from the very beginning, because of the use of the word authorization. The mayor and the staff
are already authorized to do this; they don't need any further authorization, now if this resolution
states that it encourages the mayor to do this, that's fine. The mayor already has the
authorization to do that, that comes with the tree ordinance.
Alderman Thiel: That's a very good point.
Alderman Young: So there's really no further authorization needed.
Mayor Coody: Would you please make a motion to change that language then.
Alderman Young moved to change the wording to "That the City of Fayetteville hereby
encourages the mayor and the staff to work with....". Alderman Santos Seconded.
City Attorney Williams: That would also go for the title right?
Alderman Young: Right.
Upon roll call the amendment to the resolution passes 7-0. Alderman Davis was absent.
Mayor Coody: The reason for this resolution is to show that the City Council supports this
effort. We wanted to make sure that we're all on the same team and same page on this because
this is going to be a long term process and I didn't what to have somebody come back later on
and say they didn't agree with this law. So it's good to have the City Council behind it.
Alderman Thiel: I know that this resolution is looking at long term solutions and I know that
that's important, but I think on the short term we need to realize that SWEPCO does have to trim
branches and trees. We could also encourage SWEPCO to do more frequent pruning rather than
such drastic pruning. I know this will probably cost more but if there's someway we can
encourage SWEPCO to prune more often and communicate between the neighborhoods. There
just needs to be better communication between the utility company and the people that are going
to be affected so that they will know when they are going to prune so they can prepare for it.
Alderman Reynolds: Mayor I wish that we would have the same franchise agreement with
SWEPCO that we have with Ozarks Electric. I don't know why it didn't happen. We certainly
need to move forward in your approval and get that agreement with SWEPCO for our future.
Mayor Coody: Is there a date certain for this franchise to expire and a new one to be reissued?
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 27 of 35
City Attorney Williams: I not sure, I'll have to look at that. I think there is and I don't think
it's immediate, but it doesn't mean that we can't renegotiate with SWEPCO if they're willing to
do it.
Alderman Santos. • Seems like I saw that either party could back out with 60 days notice.
City Attorney Williams: We could certainly renegotiate with them and we can see if they will.
agree to the same terms that Ozarks Electric has agreed to.
Mayor Coody: I've been out Mr. DeWeese, on several occasions, we've met with the
Public Service Commission member and some other folks about this issue. SWEPCO's not the
only utility on the power poles, so are Cox Cable and Southwestern Bell and I don't know if
there's anybody else on there, but SWEPCO is at the top. So you can basically look at the poles
and see who's got what wires where. We'll have to work with all the wire services to try to get
this hammered out.
Alderman Marr: I would also encourage a local Public Service Commission meeting so that
citizens can easily be able to provide `that input locally without having to go to Little Rock or
somewhere else to get their point across. I received probably more calls on this then even my •
crazy outdoor music ordinance, so I do think it's a major issue. We saw this in the historic
neighborhoods this time and some major traffic thoroughfares in our city that aren't real
attractive. I cringe at the thought of people driving down North Street after football games and
seeing some of the views that we have there. I realize that we only have power and authority to
do only certain things and this is really handled by the Public'Service Cominissioh. s . w
r .. ., q * .
Mayor Coody: One of things that we've discussed is.buryirig -all . the power' lines in town but
that would be prohibitively expensive, so we're going to look at different_ optionstand •use the
option that might work best for any given situation. Some might be buried, some might be
moved back to the old alleys we have here in town. I thinkgettingthe power lines off our main
thoroughfares and main street to where when we drive down the streets we don't have to see this
aft
extensive tree trimming going on and we can build an urban forest. We coulddevelopa-good
tree planting program where we don't have to plant trees now and 20 years from now cut them
• all down. I know in the historical district they bundled the electrical in a very fight bundle with
insulators to kind of compress"them to where they will have a lesserimpacton the trees. I think
there area lot of different options, we're going to look at different options for different locations,
all of it costs money though.
•
•
•
Alderman Thiel: That is one reason for us to keep in mind to not abandon our alleys. We
haven't been doing that.
Alderman Santos: The University uses utility tunnels; it's about nine million dollars a -mile for
a utility tunnel -
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 28 of 35
Alderman Jordan: In the neighborhood that I live in we have never had our trees trimmed.
I've lived there 25 years and we never had our trees trimmed but they're certainly trimmed now.
My neighbors took it a step further; they came to the house and expressed their displeasure. I
think one constituent said it was like the limbs had been beat off with a rope some way. I think
that those underground lines would be the way to go. Everybody came home one night and there
are these tops of trees laying in their yards.
Mark Kenyon, Coordinator of the Wilson Park Neighborhood Association: Spoke in favor
of the resolution.
Mayor Coody: Thank you Mr. Kenyon. You bring up a good point when you say that the
citizens need to get involved too because this is going to take everybody working together on
this.
Brian Steel: Spoke in favor of the resolution.
Sharon Davidson: Spoke in favor of the resolution.
Alderman Bechard: Do we know how often these people come in and cut these trees down?
Mayor Coody: I think it is on a seven year cycle but I'm not sure.
Steve Singleton: Spoke in favor of the resolution.
Judy Singleton: Spoke in favor of the resolution.
Bill Dollar, representing the Tree and Landscape Advisory Committee for the City of
Fayetteville: Spoke in favor of the resolution. We are meeting every Monday at 4:00 in Room
1 1 1 at City Hall to address the issue of utilities and tree trimming in the City of Fayetteville.
These meetings will be on an on going basis until further notice.
Alderman Young: Kim Hesse, are oak trees considered slow growing species?
Kim Hesse: Fairly slow growing, there are some types of oaks that are quicker than others; it
just depends on a lot of different situations. The growth of every tree species depends on many
different parameters.
Alderman Young: Could you make a wild guess at about how much an oak tree grows in a
year?
Kim Hesse: No, it depends on soils, moisture and on the amount of sun that it gets; there are so
many different factors. Typically in our soil they are so shallow and so rocky that they are quite
slow growing, but you'll have an occasional situation where you will be amazed at how quickly
they can grow. So it's hard for me to give you that.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 29 of 35
Alderman Young: In rocky soil they don't grow very fast and lie good conditions they do grow
fast.•
t . . r
r
Kim Hesse: They do grow fairly well.
Mr. Tommy DeWeese: I work for American Electric Power This is the actual document that
we leave at the premises where we go to trim the trees, this is left two weeks in advance of that.
I have a documentthatbasically coutlines a notification process.': The tree trimming:issue in
Fayetteville is almost an annual event. We would sure like to strive foreveryone's Satisfaction
so that we absolutely have the minimum impact possible. We try to do the balancing act that
we're charged with on maintaining reliable electric services and still yet trying to balance the
assets that we have in Fayetteville of the trees and the beauty.
A long term solution is really what I think the mayor and I have talked about. We've driven
around town and we've looked at some various installations, this is what I know that American
Electric Power and myself, a resident of Fayetteville would like to see happen. Underground
lines are mentioned a lot here, they are extremely expensive. We did a study of the south part of
College Avenue five or six years ago and that was running at a little bit more than $1.5 million a
half mile for the electric utilities part to bury those facilities. There are expenses that you have to
take into affect not only from the electrical side of it but from the telephone, television cable and
also most important from the individual whether it's a business owner or homeowner. In many
instances if you go into an existing area where you have what we call overhead service it's going
to require that resident or business to relocate their service entrance and to have quite an expense
on their part as well. I've agreed with the Mayor that we would go in and look at various
locations in town to see where we could get the biggest return for our dollar and save the most
tree canopy that we can. That doesn't mean that this is overall cure a 100% solution that's going
to happen overnight; with the dollars that we're talking about here it's very long term. It's going
to be a slow proposition but we at least need to identify where we want to target our efforts. I
wish that I could say the tree trimming activities in our town will go away, they will not. We do
notify the city in advance on the circuit that we plan to trim; we keep an outage record of all
those circuits. North Street with WRMC hospital and the VA hospital had a bad outage record
on it, when you have facilities like that on it you want to try to maintain reliable services there as
much as possible, so that was one of the reasons for North Street. But I'll give you a heads up
right now along Highway 45, Mission Street from the cemetery on the trees are burning in the
lines out there and we're going to have to trim that area out there. We try to give the city
advance warning. I know that those will be available to the Tree and Landscape Committee as
well on where we need to plan on trimming out there; we'll be glad to try and help to improve on
the communications gap as much as possible. I'll be glad to work with you all towards that goal,
but it's a long term solution and we've got a beautiful asset here that we try to maintain as much
as possible. It is so expensive and one solution bearing the lines is not it, as the mayor
mentioned it's going to be a combination of a lot of things. 1916 was the first franchise that was
granted by the City of Fayetteville to the electric company, we're not going to' be able to correct
a lot of problems that have gone on since 1916 overnight, we just don't have the money to do it.
I think we can take a step forward and keep stepping forward next year and the next year after
that to do it. I will never be able to promise you that we will not have dissatisfied citizens in
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 30 of 35
Fayetteville over tree tnmmmg. I have worked for the utility company for 33 years and I've
never seen a pretty tree trimming job in my life and I don't think I will but it's a necessary thing
that we have to do to maintain our service. I will volunteer to take the steps forward with the
city and the citizens to try to look at the areas to see what we can do to at least start down the
road to this because it's an annual thing we have here each year.
Alderman Marr: You say it's a two week notice but I went home and looked at the date on it
and it wasn't any where near two weeks, so what is the process of tracking that these are in fact
being delivered with that much notice. How do you handle the situation where you are trimming
in the summer and people are on vacations and what you may count as a two week notice maybe
a one day notice for them?
Mr. DeWeese: We have an individual that his sole job is to contact the individual property
owner, in Fayetteville we're sort of unique we have a lot of students here that rent property and
they could really care less about the trees or what happens to them. We try to as best we can to
contact that individual property owner not the kids that are living there or the renter.
Alderman Marr: How often do you get back to an area, what would be the typical cycle?
Mr. DeWeese: To give you a specific answer four years, in reality it may have varied 15 years
or 10 years In some really sensitive areas, we have not been in there as often as we should have
and we may have taken the easy way out to try to avoid the criticism and the public out cry
whenever we do. We realize that and we try to work with them. Four years if you want a
specific answer from me but in reality it varies a lot.
Alderman Marr: Why is it not acceptable to allow a neighborhood association or a homeowner
to contact their own service to trim if they use the service you're using?
Mr. DeWeese: The main thing with that is the safety and reliability issue that we have to have
working around electrical conductors, that's really the main reason that we have to have those
people approved. They have to have the proper training. We do have an arborist on staff that
does make those cuts on those trees and we have them reviewed. I know that the city, Kim
reviews a lot of our cuts as well.
Alderman Marr: Have they reviewed some of the pictures that we've seen?
Mr. DeWeese: Yes.
Alderman Marr: And what was their assessment of that trimming?
Mr. DeWeese: You'd have to ask Kim you know on that.
Alderman Marr: What about your arborist?
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 31.ot35
Mr. DeWeese: My own assessment on that,' yes they are very drastic looking cuts on a lot of
those trees, I don't want to speak for Kim you'd have to ask her. To my knowledge we have not
made any cuts that where not properly doneaccording to the arborist standards. I am not an
arborist, let me make that clear.
Alderman Marr: I guess I too am looking for some short term solutions. If you have an
approved vendor list who understands how to work around utility lines then I don't understand
why that list can't be made available to individuals or to neighborhoods to have them contract to
trim them yearly if they choose to do it so that they don't have trees destroyed. I don't think
anyone wants to have their power out or doesn't want the utility to be able to do what they need
to do to maintain power to the city, but at the same time we don't want to ruin them. I don't
know the solution but I think you need some short term solution other than we're going to get to
bury them. I researched a county in California and it wasn't millions, it was billions of dollars to
put their utilities underground. So I don't see that as a solution that's going to help us today.
Mr. DeWeese: It's so expensive and the one thing that we want to work with the city on is to try •
to go in and try to save some existing tree canopy where we can. Where we need to focus our
efforts on is where we can go in and maybe reroute some lines or something like that, again
we're talking about a lot of money and it is billions of dollars if you were to get in that area.
With the environment that we have here we really are susceptible to storms, whenever we have
storms here we have a tremendous amount of outages. December 25th of 2000 we received
26,229 calls for power outages, we really suffered with lengthy outages in some areas of'
Fayetteville that we're trying to correct right now with our tree trimming program. Some of
those outages have been three, four and five days and that's• inside the city limits and we're
working hard to try to eliminate that in the future, so it's a balancing act. It really is, but again I
would only offerto you as the City Council and the City that we sure are willing to take the step
forward with you to work where we`ean and' to work towards a long term solution. "'• ..+
ti4% r. ;
Af
Alderman Jordan: In my neighborhood, I've lived there 25 years and this is the first time
we've had any tree trimming in that area that f can recall. (Across the street from where I live,
there's two huge trees sawed completely down.t There's has to be a better
Alderman Bechard: How often do, you
ev da ? dN'1 •
X:
havepeople, trimming' trees in Fayetteville?
... io.s ., •.., 4 A
Is it
Mr. DeWeese: We trim in Fayetteville 12 months out of the year.
Mayor Coody:. Is there a chance that you could have an approved list that does your work for.
you, that you could submit to the neighborhoods and they could contract with the same people
that you are doing your work with. Neighborhoods could pay them directly and keep you from
having to do it, is there a chance that you can do something like that.
Mr. DeWeese: I will be happy to explore that with our company. I can tell you from past
experience though, the liability that is incurred, that the answer was no.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 32 of 35
Alderman Thiel: Even if they are using the same companies. I don't understand why.
Mr. DeWeese: If I understood the question it would be an approved list of contractors that an
individual neighborhood could choose from if they wanted to engage in that. My answer to that
was we have not ever done that in the past and the reasoning for not doing it is the liability
incurred.
Mayor Coody: If AEP was completely out of the loop, if the neighborhood was contracting
directly with the company as a one on one relationship and you all were a million miles away
from it, would that be a doable situation.
Mr. DeWeese: The answer to that was due to the liability aspect of it, if an individual contacts
the line no matter who basically he is working for the utility company most often is drawn into it.
Alderman Marr: How's that different if they are doing it for you and they are doing it for a
neighborhood. The same person is up there trimming regardless.
Mr. DeWeese: As long as you "contracted with the same people" that we had, I don't know if
we have a problem with that, but I would have to run that by our legal department. You have to
realize there is a tremendous liability around electrical power lines, and it's proven time and time
again in court cases and in northwest Arkansas where you have electrical contacts and fatalities
which we have had in this area, the resulting liability and the litigation that goes along with that
is very substantial.
Greg Boettcher: I know that in our communities when we're doing trimming you maintain
radio communications with where ever they are trimming. We reset the breakers, so if someone
gets in the line the breaker is reset automatically that way there's less potential for injury. There
has to be a lot of coordination with the electric company and your dispatchers when you do
trimming. I think once you cut clearances, aren't other trimmers allowed to shape or otherwise
work on the trees, is that correct.
Mr. DeWeese: Once you get your clearance, yes.
Alderman Marr: But the clearance is to chop it down, because that's pretty much the choice.
Mr. DeWeese: That's sort of after the fact type deal. I can't express enough of the liability and
safety issue that we go through when you're working around those conductors like that.
Alderman Young: You say you're trimming year round, this company you hire to do trimming
typically how long is their contract?
Mr. DeWeese: Historically speaking for five or six years, seven years or something like that.
Alderman Young: How come I see so many other companies?
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 33 of 35
Mr. DeWeese: For years up until about 1990 we used West Tree Service in Fayetteville. I may
be off a year or so here so forgive me. About 1992, right in that area, we went to Wright and this
year we have just renewed AEP's total service area with ASP Lund and that's the new "group"
you see in Fayetteville.3 yr • . :, 5,• -t
t '
t i t.i: t
Alderman Young: Well it seems like I h.ave seen quite a few mistaken.
_ .t _
Mr. DeWeese: Wright was out of Iowa'- ASP Lund is a national company. „They've got the
orange and black trucks.
Alderman Young: That's one of the things that I and everybody else sees, that they're"all from
• out of state.
Mr. DeWeese: West is from out of Little Rock and they've worked here for years.
Alderman Young: You've mentioned the amount of trimming but did I read correctly that you
trim 15 feet away from the lines.
Mr. DeWeese: You can't say that as a general rule. The clearances are based upon the voltage,
the type of line and the line construction, I can't give you a one size fits all answer, and there are
different clearances for difference voltages.
Alderman Young: So the voltage is what?
Mr. DeWeese: That's one of the things about the North Street area, that is a major circuit high
voltage line, there's more clearance there and that's one of the reasons that it looks like it looks
Alderman Young: That's why I was asking Kim how fast the trees grows, because at 15 feet it
would take an awful long time for an oak tree to grow back any where close to the line
Mr. DeWeese: I'm not an arborist but I will say this in working around them for 33 years each
individual tree, each individual soil, you sort of have to look at it individually.
Alderman Young: I'm all in favor in working with you and I understand the safety aspect of it
but you all are talking about long term solutions and other solutions. I would just encourage you
to look at the corporate responsibility and your corporate policies, because your policies may be
set corporate wide all over the country but trees in Fayetteville may not grow as fast as other.
parts of the country. These arborist standards may not take that into account either and that's the
only thing I would encourage you to look at.
•
Mr. DeWeese: I appreciate those comments and I will try to echo those comments whenever I
can because Fayetteville is an extremely sensitive tree area and we realize that. I preach that to
our crews coming in here and we acknowledge that.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 34 of 35
Mayor Coody: It's kind of a twofold problem, one is that we are losing a lot of our best trees
and that of course has a lot of folks upset, including myself because I hate to see nice trees lost as
well. The other half of the equation is that as we expose more and more of our utility lines,
we're doing two things were exposing even though we appreciate the power and we appreciate
what they provide for us visually they don't add much to the community and as we advance in
technology where we are getting more and more of these huge thick black cables and we're
adding more and more lines to the poles as we cut the trees back more and more, it makes a
downward spiral in the appearance of our city. I think this gives us several reasons why we
should work together to alleviate the visual impact of the utilities that we all use; if it wasn't for
us using them we wouldn't have this problem. We all, SWEPCO, the citizens, Bell, Cox, we all
bear a responsibility here and we're all going to have to bend to make this work for the whole
community. There may be some neighbors that don't want to have their utilities moved to the
back of their house because there's a tree they might lose back their, but it's better for the whole
community if we do get them off the main thoroughfare. Not everybody is going to be happy but
for a community wide project we'll all have to give some on this.
Mr. DeWeese: One thing I want to add there. I can't make a tree trimming lob look pretty, but I
can acknowledge to you all, we need to improve and I want to improve, if we've got a problem
in communications, I want to take care of it.
Kim Hesse: That's where the problem is because they sucker out the very long weak branch
joints, because you don't cut it at the nub or branch knot you just cut them and that's what causes
the problem. We do not want them to be topping trees at all, that's the worst thing you can do.
You're better off losing the trees and starting over. Where we have trees where the tops have
been cut it's much more difficult to find ways to prune them out because of the way they've been
ruined, a lot of those trees are like that. Whereas if they were pruned properly we would be able
to make more investments. I don't know if that helps but it is a possibility.
Mr. DeWeese: Thank you all very much for your time. I can sure pledge that we want to work
with you where we can, take a step forward where we can.
Ms. Singleton: I Just encourage you to add short term to the resolution.
Alderman Santos moved to amend the resolution as suggested to include short term as well
as long term solutions. Alderman Jordan seconded.
Mayor Coody asked shall the amendment to the resolution pass. Upon roll call the
amendment to the resolution passed 7-0. Alderman Davis was absent.
Alderman Santos moved to pass the resolution. Alderman Bechard seconded.
Mayor Coody asked shall the resolution pass. Upon roll call the resolution passed 7-0.
Alderman Davis was absent.
RESOLUTION 123-02 AS RECORDED IN THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK.
City Council Meeting
August 6, 2002
Page 35 of 35
Alderman Thiel: Actually this is something that I.know several aldermen have suggested and
we have talked to the mayor about, we need to have a retreat.
Mayor Coody: Yes.
Alderman Thiel: We need to discuss the preliminary budget and we need to establish priorities.
We need I think probably a whole weekend.
Mayor Coody: Hugh has asked Mr. Rosen to join us but Mr. Rosen and Hugh have been
playing phone tag apparently. We had a gentleman set up to try to come but he's booked out
way in advance so we decided to go with somebody locally that could do it on a shorter notice.
Alderman Thiel: But can we get a date scheduled here. I've been talking about this for months.
Mayor Coody: I know as we all have. How about if you give me Mr. Rosen's number I'll see
if I can't get in touch with him and set something up.
Alderman Marc I think this is so needed and a great idea. I'm glad we're doing it but 1 would
also encourage us so that the person who facilitates our meeting comes with some municipal
background in addition to just a business, that's my one concern about it.
Meeting adjourned at 9:50 p.m.