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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-10-06 - Minutes -Council Member Sonia Gutierrez Ward 1 Position I Council Member Sarah Marsh Ward 1 Position 2 Council Member Mark Kinion Ward 2 Position 1 Council Member Matthew Petty Ward 2 Position 2 Mayor Lioneld Jordan City Attorney Kit Williams City Clerk Kara Paxton City of Fayetteville Arkansas City Council Meeting October 6, 2020 City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 1 of 43 Council Member Sloan Scroggin Ward 3 Position 1 Council Member Sarah Bunch Ward 3 Position 2 Council Member Teresa Turk Ward 4 Position I Council Member Kyle Smith Ward 4 Position 2 A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council was held on October 6, 2020 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 219 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Mayor Jordan called the meeting to order. In order to create social distancing due to the Coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic, Council Members Sonia Gutierrez, Sarah Marsh, Mark Kinion, Matthew Petty, Sloan Scroggin, Sarah Bunch, Teresa Turk, and Kyle Smith joined the meeting via online using a video conferencing service called Zoom. Mayor Lioneld Jordan, City Attorney Kit Williams, City Clerk Treasurer Kara Paxton, Chief of Staff Susan Norton, Police Chief Mike Reynolds, Fire Chief Brad Hardin, Chief Financial Officer Paul Becker, and two staff members from the IT Department were present in City Council Chambers while demonstrating recommended social distancing. Pledge of Allegiance Mayor's Announcements, Proclamations and Recognitions: Mayor Jordan: In light of the current health concerns, Fayetteville City Hall is closed to the public. This meeting is being held virtually. I am present in Council Chambers with a handful of essential support staff. City Attorney Kit Williams, City Clerk Treasurer Kara Paxton, Chief of Staff Susan Norton, IT Director Keith Macedo, Police Chief Mike Reynolds, Fire Chief Brad Hardin, Chief Financial Officer Paul Becker, and two representatives from the IT Department. City Council Members, City Staff, and the public are participating online or by phone. Other than 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 2 of 43 those of us you see before you, the voices you hear during the course of this meeting are being recorded for public record and piped into the Council Chambers. Participation remains of the upmost importance to the City of Fayetteville. We have provided many ways to participate in the meeting, which includes contacting Council Members, City Clerk office or city staff prior to the meeting. The meeting can be viewed through Fayetteville's government channel online, YouTube, and joining the Zoom conference by smartphone, tablet or computer. Staff can view when you join the meeting and when you raise your virtual hand. We ask that you refrain from doing this until the public comment portion of the item on which you wish to comment. I will provide a longer than usual period of time for you to raise your virtual hand, so as to ensure time to be recognized. Fayetteville residents will be allowed to speak first. When recognized, please state your name and address for the record. Public comment shall be allowed for all members of the audience who have signed up prior to the beginning of the agenda item they wish to address being opened for public comment. Each speaker has one turn to speak. Each speaker is allowed five minutes to be broken into segments of three and two minutes, which staff will monitor. Amendments may receive public comments only if approved by the City Council by unanimous consent or majority vote. If public comment is allowed for an amendment, speakers will only be allowed to speak for three minutes. The City Council may allow both a speaker additional time and an unsigned -up person to speak by unanimous consent or majority vote. Mayor Jordan: On October 1, 2020 the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police honored the ultimate sacrifice of Officer Stephen Carr, who was tragically killed in the line of duty on December 7, 2019. The Carr Family was in attendance and was presented with the Fallen Officer of the Year Award. The AACOP honored three officers that showed amazing bravery on the same night. Sergeant James Jennings, Corporal Seay Floyd, and Officer Natalie Eucce undoubtedly saved multiple lives on that night. The AACOP also honored Chief Mike Reynolds with the AACOP Chief of the Year Award for the State of Arkansas. Chief Reynolds was recognized for his unwavering steadfast leadership and dedication to members of the Police Department and the City of Fayetteville. We are very proud of you and we honor you. City Council Meeting Presentations, Reports, and Discussion Items: Monthly Financial Report Paul Becker, Chief Financial Officer gave a summary of the Monthly Financial Report. He stated the report is through the month of August 2020. He stated overall, the General Fund is roughly on budget. He stated the Street Fund is up 2.2%. He stated the Parking Fund is down about 40% compared to last year. He stated the Parks Development Fund, HMR taxes were down 16% compared to last year. He stated the Water & Sewer Fund total billings are up 2%. He stated Trash & Recycling is down in total, roughly 2% in revenue compared to budget. He stated the Airport Fund is down in revenue 19.7% in sales compared to last year. He stated we are now 2/3 through the year of 2020 and he is more than satisfied with the revenue receipts, especially with the coronavirus impact on the economy. He spoke about the challenges coming up in the 0 quarter of 2020 in meeting the city's budget projections. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 3 of 43 Agenda Additions: Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act Funds: A resolution to authorize the Mayor to seek Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds for pandemic -related expenses incurred by the city, and to authorize the Mayor to sign the Coronavirus Relief Fund Program Sub -recipient Agreement for municipalities and counties. Council Member Marsh made a motion to suspend the rules and add Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act Funds to the agenda. Council Member Smith seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed 7-0. Council Members Smith, Gutierrez, Marsh, Kinion, Scroggin, Bunch, and Turk voting yes. Council Member petty was absent during the vote. City Attorney Kit If illiams read the resolution. Paul Becker, Chief Financial Officer gave a brief description of the resolution. He stated he had just got the documents yesterday and felt it was very important to come forward because they have a very short time frame. He stated the state has set up a relief fund and municipalities will petition for reimbursements for funding from the federal government. He spoke about a $50,000 He stated he will request reimbursements and hopes for it to be considered and approved. Council Member Turk: When is the deadline that you have to submit the reimbursements? I am anticipating that our request for reimbursement would be more than $50,000. Is there a limit? Paul Becker: We have to request for program consideration by November 25, 2020. All expenses have to be completed by the end of December. The rough cap the state has indicated would be in excess of $2 million, potentially in reimbursements and pushing closer to $3 million. Council Member Turk: Since the pandemic is continuing and expenses are continuing, can you project out past November 251h to the end of the calendar year? Paul Becker: I can't at this point. I think by the end of November, I should be in a position to do that. We will have continuing expenses and there are a number of programs I would like to push forward. Council Member Gutierrez moved to approve the resolution. Council Member Marsh seconded the motion. Upon roll call the resolution passed unanimously. Resolution 236-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Consent: Approval of the September 1, 2020 and September 15, 2020 City Council meeting minutes. Approved 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 4 of 43 Arkansas Municipal League Vehicle Program: A resolution to approve a budget adjustment in the total amount of $5,208.00 recognizing reimbursements from the Arkansas Municipal League Vehicle Program and Shelter Insurance for damages to city vehicles. Resolution 237-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Bid #20-66 Goodwin & Goodwin, Inc.: A resolution to award Bid #20-66 and authorize a contract with Goodwin & Goodwin, Inc. in the amount of $315,139.10 for the construction and rehabilitation of water pressure sustaining and reducing valves, and to approve a project contingency in the amount of $63,027.82. Resolution 238-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Olsson, Inc. Amendment No. 4: A resolution to approve Amendment No. 4 to the professional engineering services agreement with Olsson, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $58,800.00 for engineering services related to the East Fayetteville Water System Improvements Project. Resolution 239-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk J.R. Stewart Pump & Equipment, Inc.: A resolution to accept a quote in the amount of $45,042.86 plus applicable taxes and freight charges from J.R. Stewart Pump & Equipment, Inc. for the repair of a pump and motor used at the Hamestring Sewer Lift Station. Resolution 240-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk In -Place Machining Company: A resolution to approve an amendment to the contract with In - Place Machining Company in the amount of $20,461.31 for additional costs associated with the repair of a rotor shaft on the thermal dryer at the Biosolids Management Site. Resolution 241-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk 2020 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Action Plan: A resolution to approve the 2020 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Action Plan, to authorize Mayor Jordan to execute the CDBG Agreement for 2020 in the amount of $741,644.00 when received, and to approve a budget adjustment. Resolution 242-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Bid #20-73 Building Exteriors, Inc.: A resolution to award Bid #20-73 and authorize a contract with Building Exteriors, Inc. in the amount of $70,658.00 for the installation of 160 trees along the Cato Springs Trail, and to approve a project contingency in the amount of $7,000.00. Resolution 243-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Bid #20-72 Sweetser Construction, Inc. - 2019 Park Improvements Bond Project: A resolution to award Bid #20-72 and authorize a contract with Sweetser Construction, Inc. in the amount of 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 5 of 43 $439,182.60 for construction of a larger Gulley Park Township parking lot, to approve a project contingency in the amount of $20,000.00, and to approve a budget adjustment - 2019 Park Improvements Bond Project. Resolution 244-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Bid #20-71 Goodwin & Goodwin, Inc. - 2019 Drainage Bond Project: A resolution to award Bid #20-71 and authorize a contract with Goodwin & Goodwin, Inc. in the amount of $205,426.10 for the construction of the Palmer Avenue Drainage Improvements Project, to approve a project contingency in the amount of $30,810.00, and to approve a budget adjustment - 2019 Drainage Bond Project. Resolution 245-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Bid #20-74 Milestone Construction Company, LLC - 2019 City Facilities Improvements Bond Project: A resolution to award Bid #20-74 and authorize a contract with Milestone Construction Company, LLC in the amount of $427,919.21 for the restoration of the Town Center Plaza, to approve a project contingency in the amount of $40,081.00, and to approve a budget adjustment - 2019 City Facilities Improvements Bond Project. Resolution 246-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk RFQ 19-01 Miller, Boskus, Lack Architecture P,A. for Architectural Services - 2019 Park Improvement Bond Project: A resolution to approve a professional architectural services agreement with Miller Boskus Lack Architects, P.A., pursuant to RFQ #19-01, for architectural services associated with the Yvonne Richardson community Center Expansion, to approve Phase 1 of the contract in the amount of $27,390.00 for programming and schematic design, to authorize Planning Commissioner Matt Hoffman to provide services to the city, and to approve a budget adjustment - 2019 Park Improvement Bond Project. Resolution 247-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Council Member Turk moved to accept the Consent Agenda as read. Council Member Smith seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. Unfinished Business: Arkansas and Missouri Railroad Futrall Drive and Gregg Avenue - 2019 Transportation Bond Project: An ordinance to waive competitive bidding and authorize a New Railroad Crossing Cost and Maintenance Agreement and an Easement Agreement with the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad for a new railroad crossing at Futrall Drive and Gregg Avenue, to approve a project contingency in the amount of $28,344.86, and to approve a budget adjustment for the estimated total project cost of $750,000.00 - 2019 Transportation Bond Project. At the August 4, 2020 City Council meeting this item was tabled for two weeks. This item will be placed on the 0811812020 City Council meeting agenda. At the August 18, 2020 City Council meeting this item was tabled for two weeks. This item 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 6 of 43 will be placed on the September 1, 2020 City Council meeting agenda. This item was tabled for two weeks at the September 1, 2020 City Council meeting. This item will be placed on the September 15, 2020 City Council meeting agenda. At the September 15th, 2020 City Council Meeting this item was tabled. This item will be placed on the 1010612020 City Council Meeting. Chris Brown, City Engineer gave a brief description of the ordinance. He stated the city is still working on it with the railroad and not ready to ask for consideration of approval for this tonight. He stated he sent the railroad a proposed revised contract to change the closure location to Jocelyn Lane. He stated he has sent a couple of plans to the property owner who is impacted by the closure. He requested for the ordinance to be tabled. Mayor Jordan: We are moving somewhat forward on this. I was encouraged by some of the emails between the city and railroad. We are going to need a couple more weeks before we can get things finalized. Council Member Petty: Chris, is two weeks realistically enough? Do you want us to table it indefinitely so you can bring this back off the table whenever you are ready? Chris Brown: I will yield to the Mayor on what he prefers to do. Council Member Petty: I move that we table this indefinitely and then we can bring it back up at Agenda Session as soon as it's all ready. Mayor Jordan: I think in two weeks we are going to see some sort of answer on this, but we can table it indefinitely. Council Member Petty made a motion to table the ordinance indefinitely. Council Member Marsh seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. This ordinance was tabled indefinitely. RZN 2020-000001: (3670 W. Mt. Comfort Rd./Kum & Go #2424): An ordinance to rezone that property described in rezoning petition RZN 20-01 located at 3670 West Mount Comfort Road for approximately 2.01 acres from R-A, Residential Agricultural to CS, Community Services. At the September 15, 2020 City Council Meeting this item was left on the first reading. This item will be placed on the October 6, 2020 City Council Meeting. Garner Stoll, Development Services Director: We got an email from the applicant's representative yesterday asking for the item to be withdrawn from your agenda. I talked to the applicant's representative and they understand that it kills the application. They are not wanting an indefinite continuance. City Attorney Kit Williams: Did you say they did not want it tabled indefinitely? Garner Stoll: No, they are not requesting that. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 7 of 43 City Attorney Kit Williams: It will have to be voted down then. Garner Stoll: Let me clarify what I asked them. I said, you don't want to continue this to be considered at a later agenda. They said, no. So, probably an indefinite continuance would achieve the same goal, if that's more efficient. City Attorney Kit Williams: It can be tabled indefinitely. Council Member Smith made a motion to table the ordinance indefinitely. Council Member Gutierrez seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. This ordinance was tabled indefinitely. Public Hearing: Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity — Ambassador Taxi Company: A resolution granting a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to Ambassador Taxi for the operation of up to six (6) taxicabs in the City of Fayetteville. Mike Reynolds, Chief of Police gave a brief description if the resolution. He stated city ordinance requires the hearing for the Council to determine if there is further need for taxi cab services in Fayetteville. He stated Ambassador's application contains all information that is required by ordinance. He stated Ambassador is requesting a maximum of six taxi cabs be permitted and the city currently has three taxi cab companies permitted in Fayetteville. He stated Fayetteville Taxi has one vehicle and one driver, Payless Taxi has two vehicles and one driver, and Dynasty Taxi has not permitted any vehicles or drivers in 2020. He stated if Dynasty Taxi does not permit any vehicles or drivers by the end of 2020, they will abandon their certificate by ordinance. Council Member Scroggin: Do we have any idea how many Uber drivers or Lyft drivers there are? Mike Reynolds, Chief of Police: No, we do not. Those public network companies are all governed by the State of Arkansas. They don't provide that information to us, nor do they have too by state law. Council Member Scroggin: That is unfortunate. I don't feel we should be limiting taxis when we can't limit Uber and Lyft. Council Member Turk: Ambassador is asking for six cabs? Mike Reynolds, Chief of Police: They have asked for a maximum of six cabs and a minimum of two. Council Member Turk: Six seems a bit excessive compared to the other three cab companies that only have one, two or no cabs. I'm not a proponent to limiting competition within our city. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 8 of 43 Council Member Petty: I feel much the same as Council Member Scroggin did. Is it necessary that we continue to hold these public hearings? City Attorney Kit Williams: It's part of our code. Unless the City Council changes the code, then this is how we are going to handle it. We inspect the cabs and require them to have insurance. Uber and Lyft are removed from our jurisdiction and given to the state, but they do have some insurance requirements at the state level and have some control over their drivers. Without a public hearing and the kind of requirements we have, you could have someone that might not have a safe vehicle and would be out driving as a taxi. There are reasons to continue some regulations toward the cabs. I agree that we have much more stringent regulations than the state does. Council Member Petty: It sure seems like we are putting a lot of red tape on taxi operators that we don't on ride -share drivers. Kara Paxton, City Clerk Treasurer: Thank you to Sergeant Dicus who worked with this company and worked directly with the City Clerk office in order to get everything ready for the agenda. Sergeant Dicus is easy to work with and has gone above and beyond the call of duty to be able to take care of all of this for them. Mike Reynolds, Chief of Police: Thank you. I will pass that along. They make my job easy. Stu Larrabee: Has the applicant presented yet? Mayor Jordan: The applicant is not in attendance. Stu Larrabee stated the notice he got about this was just a phone call. He stated there was no paperwork backup, which has always been done in the past. He stated the website had been revamped since the last time he visited and he went through 1,147 pages in order to pull out this information. He stated this is the fourth time that Ambassador has done a City Council meeting. He spoke about the first time that Ambassador was denied. He spoke about Arkansas statute. He spoke coupon vouchers and taxi meter regulations. He spoke in opposition of the resolution. Kara Paxton, City Clerk Treasurer: Whenever you look at the website, there are two different places where the agenda is stored. It sounds like Mr. Larrabee looked at the section where the agenda is archived. If you go to Fayetteville-ar.gov website and you click on upcoming minutes and agendas, that's the section where you need to go to look at the links where it can show you the direct documents that pertain to that agenda item. Mike Reynolds, Chief of Police: I was just informed via text that Christina Osbourn is on the line and she is here to represent Ambassador Taxi. Christina Osbourn, Representing Ambassador Taxi Company stated she was available for questions. Joe Washington, NWA Taxi owner congratulated Chief Reynolds for his accomplishments. He stated his appreciation for Sergeant Dicus. He spoke about wanting taxi companies to get along. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 9 of 43 He stated he is in favor of new people coming in. He stated he does not want the elderly generation having to wait a long time to be picked up due to not having enough taxi cabs. He spoke about Stu Larrabee causing controversy in the taxi industry. Kyle Empsall, Payless Taxi stated he wants the taxi companies to get along. He stated there is a big difference between taxis and Ubers. He stated on an Uber you have to preorder on the app and a credit card is involved. He stated with a taxi, you can hop on in and pay, which creates an easier factor. He spoke about Stu Larrabee causing controversy in the taxi industry. Mayor Jordan: There seems to be a squabble among the taxi folks. We aren't here to referee the taxi companies. We are here because Ambassador Taxi wants to set up operation. We need to stay on topic. Do you have an issue with that? Kyle Empsall: I don't have an issue with it. I have spoken with Christina. I told her I would like to work with her and get along. She is more than willing to work together. I have a problem with people harassing other taxis and spreading slander. It needs to be addressed in order for us to operate smoothly in the city. Council Member Scroggin moved to approve the resolution. Council Member Smith seconded the motion. Upon roll call the resolution passed unanimously. Resolution 248-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk New Business: Bid #20-57 Horseshoe Construction, Inc.: A resolution to award Bid #20-57 and authorize a contract with Horseshoe Construction, Inc. in the amount of $2,197,855.00 for construction services associated with the Kitty Creek Sewer Improvements Project, to approve a project contingency in the amount of $219,785.50, and to approve a budget adjustment. Tim Nyander, Utilities Director gave a brief description of the resolution. He stated the item was presented to the Water & Sewer Committee with a unanimous vote to forward it to the City Council for consideration. He stated staff recommends approval. Council Member Turk moved to approve the resolution. Council Member Gutierrez seconded the motion. Upon roll call the resolution passed unanimously. Resolution 249-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Landlords to Make Reasonable Accommodations and Work with Tenants: A resolution to encourage all landlords in Fayetteville to make reasonable accommodations and work with their tenants adversely impacted either physically or economically by the COVID-19 virus pandemic in order to avoid evictions. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 10 of 43 Mayor Jordan: This is being brought forward by Council Member Turk and Council Member Smith. Council Member Turk: This is a non -binding resolution. It expresses the intent of myself, Council Member Smith, and our fellow colleagues on the Council to work with people with their tenants during this pandemic. We'd like for them to seek solutions, rather than evictions or late payment fees. I saw an article where there were 476 evictions in the month of September in Arkansas. It did not state how many were in Washington or Benton counties. Putting people out on the street should be the last resort. This would be a measure of compassion and collaboration in working with your tenant to try and find some kind of solution. Council Member Smith: It is unfortunate that we can't take more decisive action on this. It's still worth making the statement and reminding our community what's at stake for our economy if we have people who are struggling to stay in their homes. It may be hard to pay rent when you lose a job, but it's even harder to get a job when you don't have a place to stay. This is a vicious cycle if we don't enlist everybody's help to put a pause in it. Council Member Marsh moved to approve the resolution. Council Member Gutierrez seconded the motion. Upon roll call the resolution passed unanimously. Resolution 250-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk Temporary Suspension of Utility Bill Service Cut -Offs and Late Charges: An ordinance to temporarily suspend service deposits, cut-offs, and accruals of late charges on city utility bills for non-payment due to the inability to pay because of the COVID-19 virus pandemic disaster emergency. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. City Attorney Kit Williams: The resolution that was just passed, in the last whereas clause it said, whereas the city is only asking landlords to do what the city has already done, of refraining from requiring security deposits, not charging late fees, refraining from cutting off water and recycling and trash service from residential customers adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that they could not fully pay their utility bill on time. We are asking for an extension here. Mayor Jordan: This is something that Paul and I have worked on. Paul Becker, Chief Financial Officer: In March when the pandemic was announced, a key part of the ways of not spreading the virus was through washing hands and cleanliness of people. Under the Mayor's emergency power, he used those emergency powers to suspend cutting off penalties or requiring a deposit from new customers, strictly because of the lack of the funds to make payment. This is to help our customers who are under stress currently and can't make payment at this time. It would end when the Governor ends the pandemic, but up to that point in time, we are 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page I I of 43 recommending this be done. I brought this to the Water & Sewer Committee for discussion and they unanimously recommended forwarding this to the Council for approval. Council Member Kinion moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council Member Gutierrez seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Council Member Gutierrez moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading. Council Member Smith seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Mayor Jordan: We can't fix everything, but in a small way, this can help some people. We will take it one day at a time. I appreciate that you all are considering this and I know you are going to pass this. We are all in this together and we will get through it. Mayor Jordan asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the ordinance passed unanimously. Ordinance 6362 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk City Park Naming - Underwood Park: A resolution to name the city park of about 65 acres located on Dean Solomon Road as "Underwood Park" as recommended by staff and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. Connie Edmonston, Parks & Recreation Director gave a brief description of the resolution. She stated the Parks & Recreation Advisory Board and staff recommend naming the park as Underwood Park. She stated in July, City Council approved the Underwood Development as a commercial Planned Zoning District that included 602 multi -family units and a park. She stated the Underwood's collaborated with Parks & Recreation staff and neighbors in the selection of the park property. She stated 52% of the 125-acre development is designated as park land. She stated park property will be dedicated to the city in separate parcels based on development milestones. She stated the Underwood's would like to gift 38 acres to the city with the park to be named Underwood Park and the park land gift represents 57% of the total park land. She stated the City Attorney is working with the Underwood's on a no -cost lease for the remaining park land with the exception of the large pond, which will be dedicated after completion of the multi -family unit and the pond modifications needed for stormwater requirements. She spoke about the park naming policy. She stated the Underwood's are contributing significantly to the acquisition of the park by donating over 57% (38 acres) of the 65.54-acre park to the city. She stated the Park Land Dedication Ordinance places an average value on park land of $47,130 per acre, which would equal to $1,790,940 in value for the donated land. She stated the Underwood's have a long history of providing exceptional service to the park system by allowing recreational trails located on their property adjacent to Mount Sequoyah Park which increased the overall recreation value of the park at no charge to the city or people of Fayetteville. She stated Laura Underwood has provided 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 12 of 43 exceptional service to the park system by serving on the non-profit Friends of the Yvonne Richardson Community Center Board for over 6 years. She stated Laura was awarded the distinguished Volunteer of the Year in the State of Arkansas by the Arkansas Recreation and Parks Association for her achievements and dedication in serving the YRCC as a board member, including her role as President. She stated staff commends Craig and Laura Underwood for their visionary planning of the former Razorback Golf Course land and the important inclusion of significant green space. She stated this park is well suited to help form a significant conservation and trail corridor, which adds substantial value to the City of Fayetteville. She stated the Underwood's have provided lifelong assets for the community to enjoy for decades that warrants naming the park, Underwood Park. Keith Tencleve, Parks & Recreation Advisory Board stated the park should be named Underwood Park because of Craig and Laura Underwood's heart. He stated he first spoke with Craig Underwood a year and half ago about this project and the primary thing he remembered about the conversation was about the impact this park would make on the City of Fayetteville. He stated he connected over Craig's desire for other families across the socio-economic spectrum to have the same experience of what he and Laura Underwood did with their kids at Gulley Park. He stated this sets an example. He stated naming of a park of this caliber is not to be taken lightly. He stated it is a legacy issue from a city perspective with our caliber of parks. He spoke about this being a project where a developer sought to go beyond a financial gain and sought to do good for the larger community. He stated naming this Underwood Park will shine a light for the entire community, particularly for other developers. Council Member Smith: Thank you Keith for your vision and being the driving force behind getting this Northwest gap in our park system. Thank you especially to the neighbors that got on board to work with the developer and the landowners to make sure we were all working together on the front end to address their concerns. Of course, thank you to the Underwood's because this is a generous gift that's going to be much loved and well -remembered in this part of town for a long time. Council Member Turk: Thank you to the Underwood's. Being able to retain the riparian area and link that up to Wilson Springs is going to improve water quality greatly because it flows downstream into the Illinois River. This will be another benefit from their generosity. I am so pleased that everybody was able to work together on this project. It was an outstanding effort made by everyone. Mayor Jordan: Thank you to the Underwood's for this great donation to the city. Their contribution is going to help us create an incredible park. It will be one of a kind on the west side of town. It will be enjoyed by everybody for generations to come. It's going to help us preserve our green space and our national beauty. I appreciate everybody that has worked on this for many years. I am proud to see it come to reality and it's a great addition to the city. Council Member Marsh moved to approve the resolution. Council Member Smith seconded the motion. Upon roll call the resolution passed unanimously. Resolution 251-20 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 13 of 43 RZN-2020-000006 (1278 W. Hendrix St./Fugitt): An ordinance to rezone that property described in rezoning petition RZN 20-000006 located at 1278 West Hendrix Street for approximately 0.50 acres from RSF-8, Residential Single Family, 8 units per acre to RSF-18, Residential Single Family, 18 units per acre. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Garner Stoll, Development Services Director gave a brief description of the ordinance. He stated it's designated residential neighborhood area in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan and the infll score is seven. He stated the plan recommends increasing density where it's appropriate. He stated issues are unimproved streetscape. He stated the Planning Commission and staff recommend approval. Council Member Turk: We know quite a bit of information about this property. We have heard from residents many times and just because they aren't speaking tonight, I don't think should be an indication. They are largely in opposition to this. There was one person who sent an email that demonstrated the frustration from the neighbors. I want to make sure we remember how much opposition there has been for development in this neighborhood, especially with this particular piece of property. Council Member Kinion: I agree with that. For years we have been working with this neighborhood. The letter expressed the neighbors' frustration. It's like they are being hit again and again. I will support the neighbors on this again as I always have. This is a neighborhood that is worth the respect of some preservation. It's slowly being chipped away and that chips away the heritage of a middle class neighborhood that needs to be protected. Mayor Jordan: I am concerned that the applicant isn't here to talk. Do you want to hold it or go on? Council Member Scroggin: I would like to hold it. Mayor Jordan: I would like to hear from the applicant. Council Member Kinion: I would like to hear from the neighborhood. Mayor Jordan: I would too. This ordinance was left on the First Reading. VAC-2020-000001(South of 2011 W. Fox Glove Dr./Crain Kia): An ordinance to approve VAC 20-000001 for property located south of 2011 West Foxglove Drive to vacate portions of general utility and access easements. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 14 of 43 Garner Stoll, Development Services Director gave a brief description of the ordinance. He stated the Planning Commission recently approved a Large Scale Development for an automobile dealership on this parcel that makes the utility easement, which is located here and the access drive obsolete. He stated the access moves to the south off of Fox Glove Drive. He stated no use was identified for the easements. He stated the Planning Commission and staff recommend approval. Council Member Kinion moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council Member Turk seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Council Member Turk moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading. Council Member Kinion seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Mayor Jordan asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the ordinance passed unanimously. Ordinance 6363 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk Specialized Real Estate Group, Inc.: An ordinance to waive formal competitive bidding and approve a cost share agreement with Specialized Real Estate Group, Inc. as agent for Markham Residential Owner, LLC for the construction of trail improvements along Markham Road with a refund in an amount not to exceed $68,289.00 to be paid by the City of Fayetteville for the cost of the improvements that exceed the rough proportionality of the impact of the development, and to approve a project contingency in the amount of $68,289.00. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Matt Mihalevich, Trails Coordinator gave a brief description of the ordinance. He stated the best time to build the trail is when the development is occurring. He stated there are utilities that will be placed underneath this trail. He stated in the future there is potential to continue the trail over to Interstate 49 where we will be looking at a way of crossing Interstate 49, which will tie into Shiloh Trail and the new Centennial Park. He stated it has the potential for great connectivity for the city and the west side. He stated the city looks for opportunities like this to get the trail included with the development and this is what this cost share is about. Council Member Kinion: I'm trying to justify the $68,289 because it was a condition that the developers agreed to do anyway. Is that correct? Matt Mihalevich: Not really. It didn't meet the rough proportionality of the impact of this development to justify construction of this much of an infrastructure. They wouldn't be required to build that much. So, this is where the cost share comes in to fund the rest of it. $58,000 of this is coming from a sidewalk they got credit for that was going to be along South Sang Avenue. A 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 15 of 43 good portion of it is going to be covered by the developer already and the $68,289 is our portion. The actual trail construction is $127,000, which is a good value for this amount of trail. Council Member Marsh moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council Member Gutierrez seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Council Member Smith moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading. Council Member Gutierrez seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Council Member Turk: Thank you to Matt Mihalevich for attending our Ward 4 meeting. He provided a lot of information to the residents that are close by. It was extremely helpful because this is a bit complicated about how this has transpired in a cost sharing deal when most of the residents in the area are opposed to this development. They understand a nice big trail is going to be built and the utilities are going to be underneath the trail. Council Member Gutierrez: Thank you to Council Member Turk for bringing information to us. That will help my decision because I'm wanting to support the neighbors. Thank you to Council Member Smith too. Mayor Jordan asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the ordinance passed unanimously. Ordinance 6364 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk Amend §130.01 Adoption of State Criminal Code: An ordinance to amend §130.01 Adoption of State Criminal Code of the Fayetteville Code to include a hate crime component within city prosecutions of certain state criminal misdemeanors. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. City Attorney Kit Williams: This was originally requested by Council Member Turk. Council Member Turk: Thank you to Kit for drafting this proposed ordinance. Arkansas is only one of three states remaining that does not have a state hate crime ordinance. We can try and do as much as we can in our local city. This ordinance is very modest because we are limited by state law. What would be ideal is for the Governor to initiate legislation to form a broad state hate crime bill. In the absence of that, it would be very important for Fayetteville to follow Little Rock's lead and draft a hate crime ordinance that protects our citizens. There was an example last weekend of some of that kind of targeting against a group here in Fayetteville. This ordinance would add a bit more of a punch and consideration to the Prosecuting Attorney's tool kit. If a crime or 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 16 of 43 misdemeanor had been committed, they could use that information as a hate crime. I hope we will consider this for what its intention is. We could not impose fines or any additional penalties that are above state law. Council Member Petty: I definitely support the intent and I'm appreciative this was brought forward. It was Council Member Smith's election campaign that was targeted this weekend. Less than a month ago we had white supremacist graffiti put on a building in South Fayetteville. Council candidates in Springdale are subject to these kinds of hate messages every week and have been since the beginning of election season. I have some questions that were relayed to me from a lawyer. If someone is charged and convicted of a hate crime under the statute and were to commit a second offense during a lookback period, the Prosecutor has the option of charging that as a felony under state law. Does this legislation address what might happen if there is a second offense during that lookback period? City Attorney Kit Williams: I don't think it does. The state law limits us to misdemeanors only. It doesn't allow us to charge felonies. What this law would do, with plenty of evidence that a hate crime has been committed with the intent to intimidate, harass or terrorize, the City Prosecutor can always use state law and prove the state crime. If he has good evidence this was done for a prejudicial reason, then he can assume that new burden to prove that element in order to make sure the Judge knows not only the basic crime was committed, but it was perpetrated in order to terrorize a group. That would affect the potential sentence even though we can't have a range higher than what the state law allows, but it provides good information to the Judge when he is considering what would be the proper sentence within the range allowed by law. However, I don't think we can go all the way to a felony level. That's going to have to be something that would be done by the State Prosecutor. Council Member Petty: Would these new penalties be bifurcated from the existing penalties and would they have the same burden of proof? City Attorney Kit Williams: The burden of proof in a criminal case does not change. It's always beyond a reasonable doubt. This would be a time where we might not see a lot of prosecutions on this because the City Prosecutor would have to have some strong evidence and there are all kinds of rights for defendants. If they don't have good evidence the crime was committed, especially reprehensible unacceptable conduct of trying to terrorize a person because of their race, religion or disability, then the Prosecutor will probably convict them of battery or stalking. It would be a fairly rare case where there would be enough evidence that the City Prosecutor would believe that he has enough evidence to charge it under the hate crime. The downside for the Prosecutor is that if he doesn't have enough evidence to convince the Judge that it was done for an intent to terrorize one of these protected groups, then the entire charge would be lost. It's not going to be bifurcated where this could be something added on later. It would have to be part of the whole case. The Prosecutor has to weigh his evidence and make sure that what he's doing has a good chance to succeed if he does charge this hate crime element. Council Member Petty: Would this be stronger if we were to bifurcate it so that the hate crime piece could be added on to the base crime? 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 17 of 43 City Attorney Kit Williams: I don't know if we could do that. There are a lot of criminal procedural rules and there is some bifurcation when you get up into the higher level of crime where the jury is sentencing. For misdemeanors, I don't think we could bifurcate it and just add it on later. I think it's going to have to be part of the case -in -chief, which means the Prosecutor is going to have to be very careful when they do that. It is worth attempting this. We can look and see whether or not this has been successful and look at other potential options in the future. We are lucky to have a City Prosecutor like Brian Thomas who has had 10 years of experience and knows what to do. He's been very effective as a trial attorney in prosecuting people. I trust in his judgement and this is probably the best thing we can do at this time. If it has big problems, we can go back and look at it again. At this point, I would not try to bifurcate that because I don't know if that's going to be permissible under the law. Sarah Moore, 400 West Patricia stated she understands the intent behind it and knows there has been divisiveness in the community that has been unsettling. She cautioned Council to slow down and have a community conversation. She stated it is important to get all stakeholders in the community together to understand what the unintended consequences could be from giving prosecutors additional enhancement. She stated Arkansas is the number four incarcerator in the nation. She cautioned Council in making changes to laws to further be punitive. She requested for the ordinance to be tabled to have further discussion. David Freeman, Citizen stated he is curious what this item does to better support the Fayetteville community in practice. He spoke about burden of proof. He spoke about being proactive about issues going on in the community or reactive against. He stated whatever City Council decides, this will not solve the issue because the law enforcement culture predominantly responds to issues by getting rid of people without getting rid of the underlying issue. He stated voting to pass this, if it's not paired with addressing some of these bad structures that we are operating under as a city, it won't do much. Akau Anyieth stated the ordinance is a good step for Fayetteville to take. He stated the anti - lynching bill was just signed this year and it wasn't unanimous. He stated in regard to hate having to be proven, he hopes that benefit of the doubt is given to the victim because it's difficult to prove. He spoke in favor of the ordinance. Council Member Scroggin: It looks like we have a great start, but there are some technical questions we need to move through. Do we go through Ordinance Review for another meeting? Council Member Kinion: I think it would be appropriate to go to Ordinance Review so we could have some more public discussion and get directly to the improvement of what we have. Council Member Scroggin: Do I need to make a motion for that? Mayor Jordan: No, the Chair can make the meeting. City Attorney Kit Williams: You can leave it on this reading. If the Chair of the Ordinance Review Committee wants to take it up, then he can. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 18 of 43 Council Member Smith: As Chair of the Ordinance Review Committee, are there particular goals we are looking to accomplish? Beside from Council Member Petty's questions, which were answered, I'm not entirely sure I understand what changes or tweaks we are looking for. Council Member Scroggin: Does Council Member Petty feel that all of his legal questions were answered? Council Member Petty: I do. I also heard Kit express that it may be possible to bifurcate these in the future and we should keep an eye on it. With regards to that question, it didn't seem conclusive, but in listening to the comments and reading the legislation carefully, I feel this very targeted legislation and as our City Attorney described, it's probably going to have a relatively limited affect. I still think it's important to do. I am willing to defer to the Council's wishes if they think this needs a little more study. This is an appropriate ordinance. Council Member Bunch: It could use just a little more polish. There have been so many things like the anti -lynching law we didn't have a few years ago. There are laws against stalking now that we didn't have 20 years ago. I'm in favor of it and it's heading in the right direction. Council Member Turk: Kit and I have been working on this for several months. I was trying to find a time where our schedule wasn't so jam-packed with other items before I brought it forward. It is a coincidence the graffiti that was on Council Member Smith's campaign sign happened right now. Little Rock passed something in June. Kit and I've been back and forth trying to figure out how to strengthen this as much as possible. It's very modest and extremely limited, but we are preempted by state law. If the Council or the Ordinance Review Committee wants to review this some more, feel free to do so. I have tried to make this ordinance as strong as legally possible. Council Member Smith: Since I have been mentioned a couple of times, I'd like to share what I am thinking on this. I support the intent of this. Eliminating biased based offenses from our city and society is a worthy effort. I have some concerns and I've got some additional homework that I want to do. I'm not sure it needs to go to Ordinance Review. If there is something specific we are wanting to look at, I am happy to do that. It's modest by restriction of the state preemption. I'm concerned about how effective it will be. I generally prefer to prohibit these kinds of offenses rather than just seek retribution. I understand the desire for harsher penalties, but we don't even get that out of this. I want to understand better the sentencing phases of these kinds of cases and what impact this is having. I'm a little concerned by Kit's warning that we may not be able to separate this from the underlying charges. I am uncertain of whether or not laws like this have actually provided deterrence across the country and I want to look into some study on that. I have concerns about how this could contribute to over incarceration or even be turned around and used disproportionately on our indigenous and people of color in our community. I would like staff feedback on what sort of training would our Police Officers need in order to help the Prosecutor's formulate cases that would provide the evidence they need. This is a big enough community issue that we all need to be involved. Thank you, Council. Member Turk, for bringing this up for discussion. Council Member Gutierrez: I would like to hold this. Thank you, Council Member Turk and Kit for your work on it. We need to start somewhere and the heart of what is the intention here is 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteviIle-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 19 of 43 absolutely what the people of Fayetteville would want. If Fayetteville is an inclusive, welcoming city and we do not tolerate people who do not welcome and are not inclusive of all people and all ideas, I think this embodies the spirit of who the people of Fayetteville are. I support it. It may need a little work, but there is always an opportunity to amend. This ordinance was left on the First Reading. Off -Street Parking Development District No. 1: An ordinance to accept a deed to three Downtown Off -Street Parking lots, to approve a final report of the Off -Street Parking Development District No. 1 of Fayetteville, Arkansas, to accept all revenues and money remaining within the district's possession, and to dissolve this district. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. City Attorney Kit Williams: This is good news for the city. It was good news back in 1976 when this district was formed. At that point in time, the Square in the downtown area was suffering a little bit and a lot of the problem was insufficient parking for the citizens to come and go to the banks, shops, and restaurants, so the parking district was formed. They collected money from the property owners, and they built all these parking lots. Now, all the parking lots have been paid off. They have got them looking in very good shape and they would like to dissolve the district. As a part of that, not only do we receive the three parking lots, but receive about $700,000 in cash that they have accumulated through the years and are now going to return to the city. It has been a very good thing for the city. It has lasted a long time, but I think it's time to dissolve the district. Council Member Marsh moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council Member Turk seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. City Attorney Kit Williams: Justin Clay, our Parking Manager has worked hard on this. We couldn't have gotten this all wrapped up without his hard work. Council Member Turk moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading. Council Member Marsh seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Council Member Turk: I would like to applaud the people that have managed this for such a long time and the fact that they are donating $700,000. I'm sure it has been a number of years they have worked on this. Thank you to them for their service to the city. Mayor Jordan: Thank you, Council Member Turk. They have done a tremendous job managing. this over the years. Thank you to Kit Williams and Justin Clay for working on this. They have done great work. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 20 of 43 Mayor Jordan asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the ordinance passed unanimously. Ordinance 6365 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk RZN-2020-000011: (Northeast of Deane St. & Porter Rd./Fayetteville PD): An ordinance to rezone that property described in rezoning petition RZN 20-000011 located Northeast of Deane Street and Porter Road for approximately 11.60 acres from R-A, Residential Agricultural to P-1, Institutional. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Garner Stoll, Development Services Director gave a brief description of the ordinance. He stated the rezoning is to facilitate construction of a Police Station and Fire Station that were approved in the 2019 Bond issue by the voters. He stated the parcel is located at Porter Road and Deane Street on the Northeast corner. He stated it's designated as civic institutional area in the 2040 Plan. He stated this was specifically done in anticipation of these facilities being constructed. He stated the infill score is four to six. He stated issues that have been debated over the summer are appropriate setbacks for the Police Headquarters and location of parking. He stated headquarters has special security standards and safety for the public. He stated the facility is scheduled for construction in the first phase of the bond issue and it is on schedule, but the schedule is tight. He stated Fayetteville has a long standing tradition to follow all the processes and requirements for public buildings, as it does for private buildings. He stated this is both fair and produces a better outcome. He spoke about the order of the process. He stated there are concerns about how these important streets are addressed. He stated he has an alternative for Council's consideration. He stated Council could approve the P-1 zoning for the areas needed for the Police Headquarters and Fire Station and retain the R-A zoning for the remainder of the site until more detailed planning for the remainder of the site is completed. He stated the Planning Commission and staff recommend approval. Mike Reynolds, Chief of Police: On the May 26, 2020 presentation of our conceptual designs of the joint Police and Fire Department site along with the street and sidewalk improvements were presented to the Council Members at Agenda Session. Some of the Council Members raised some questions and concerns after the presentation. On July 241h, we had a stakeholder meeting with representatives from Council, city staff, Police, Fire, and community. During that workshop the stakeholders agreed to several design premises. One of the design premises we all agreed on was officer safety. With the recent attacks that have not only harmed officers, but killed officers at their own facilities, I'm confident we can all agree that community safety is important with this project. A secured staff parking lot and building setback distances are critical features discussed during the workshop. Standoff distances help with blast impacts, such as the one with the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. More recently, vehicle assaults have become common place. Back in June we had a vehicle assault of a Springfield, Missouri Police Officer. He was hit right outside of his headquarters building and was paralyzed as a result of that attack. At our stakeholder meeting, I have been advocating for a standoff distance of a minimum of 50 feet, which is consistent with a blast industry standard. The setback and accommodation with planters, landscaping walls, stairs, 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 21 of 43 trees, benches, bike racks, and flag poles in combination with the crime prevention through environmental design principles will help provide a visitor friendly design that also incorporates safety. If I can't protect my officers, I can't protect our community. As your Police Chief, a 50- foot setback is critical to ensure our facilities and resources are safeguarded. I respectfully request that Council support the move for P-1 rezoning on this property. Thank you. Brad Hardin, Fire Chief: The P-1 zoning is what we brought to you for our last building and this building is identical to that building. The P-1 zoning is needed for the length of the firetruck. Each morning the guys pull the unit out and they check the oil and go through the trucks thoroughly. Our shortest truck is about 40 foot and the longest truck is almost 60 foot. This length of the 50- foot setback is very important. Council Member Smith: I know you said at Agenda Session that we were going to confine it to the zoning and not specifics of the development, which is the way we usually handle these. We are in the awkward position tonight of being the applicants and to my knowledge we've not yet chosen a final design. I am trying to understand where we are. I really like the Exhibit A that reserves space for other future uses, but until we've picked a final design how do we know where those future uses might end up? Garner Stoll: The approval of Large Scale Development is the Planning Commission. It does provide a call up if there is a desire for Council to exercise its oversight. The question is, does it meet all the cities requirements for approval. One issue that needs to be resolved with the zoning is the setbacks. If the Police Department's setbacks aren't maintained, we wouldn't want to proceed with spending the money for engineering and planning to create the Large Scale Development. We need an answer for that to take the next step, but it doesn't take the Mayor and Council out the loop. Council Member Smith: Your Exhibit A showed the reserved future use down on the southside. When we visited with staff some of the designs had those buildings on the west side over by Porter Road and I wasn't sure if we concluded on which of those plans and if citizens had a chance to look at those designs and weigh in. Where are we in that process? We started this workshop thing and didn't have our second meeting. Susan Norton, Chief of Staff. What we did in visiting with each of you who chose to work with Wade and myself in the review of the rough schematics that we had at the time and we took all of your feedback. Wade created a score type analysis of the comments that we heard from you all and he then worked with the designer. Most of you all appreciated at least two of the drawings more than the other options. We had a consensus of you all who appreciated the approach that Wade will be pursuing with the architects in further design after the rezoning is approved. Wade Abernathy, Bond Projects & Construction Manager: The overall consensus was the layout that had the main building orientation running on the north side of the site. We did push it over to the west side to 50 feet. There's no longer a parking lot in front of the building. We are looking at the area on the southwest corner of the site designated for future amenities. It may include a public plaza, police or community building, transit hub, and pathway through a tree grove that will connect the public plaza to the PD Headquarters. It would also include bike racks, drinking 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 22 of 43 fountains, and public art. Some of the input was about the community services room. We have in the main headquarters a community service room that will accommodate up to 160 people that can be programmed for community events. LEED Silver Certification was a major criteria. This will eliminate the need for sun screening, reduces the air conditioning loads, and provides good daylighting. We worked with the topography of the building. Officer safety is a criteria. Sound dampening is a criteria. Stormwater management was a big factor and we have retention ponds and bioswales incorporated to control runoff per city standards. As far as the alignment with the comprehensive plan, we are developing the plan further for the elimination of the parking lot and introduce on -street parking. It allows us to shift the building closer to the street. These are the components that have been incorporated and we are still working on. We hope to get something to the Planning Commission in November. Susan Norton: Tonight, we are asking for the zoning approval as we requested so that Wade can continue to pursue those elements with a further fine point for design. Mayor Jordan: It was my understanding we were working on the rezoning tonight and the design would come later under the Large Scale Development. Susan Norton: Does that answer your question, Council Member Smith? Council Member Smith: I think it does. We've gotten a lot of communications encouraging us to zone this Industrial. I think they meant Institutional. I'm committed to getting the zoning on this right. I'm frustrated to take that kind of detailed look at the zoning if we haven't already settled on our design. It sounds like maybe we have, but tonight is when I learned of our consensus. I have had constituents asking for additional public comment opportunities and wondering when they would see the variety of plans they heard about in our workshop. I can't help but feel we've missed a few weeks of opportunities where we could have taken those actions. Instead, we are now back into another one of these situations where it's our schedule that's going to force a decision that we could have had a little more openly if we'd been talking about this all along. I understand where we are with the bond and I imagine we will come to a conclusion on schedule, whether or not it's received public input that folks have been asking for. Council Member Marsh: One of the things we had discussed, and I thought we were going to do was a large public input session. When did that occur? Susan Norton: We did not discuss having a large public input session at this point in time. The schedule as we have it laid out is that we need a zoning discussion tonight and the public will have its opportunity during the Planning Commission meeting to look at the Large Scale Development. Council Member Marsh: So, we are going to make the major decisions before taking the public input. I really wanted that public input session and I felt like the community wanted it. A lot of the pushback we are getting on this project has been because of the lack of opportunities for the public to get information and share their thoughts. I'm disappointed we are at this point without having had that large public input session we have repeatedly requested. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 23 of 43 Council Member Kinion: It seems like we aren't following the same rules as other people when they come in for a rezoning. Is it not right when we talk about a rezoning, we talk about the zoning and not the design? City Attorney Kit Williams: You are correct in that a zoning decision is not supposed to be for a particular project all by itself and instead it's supposed to look at the potential uses of that particular zoning district. This is a different situation in that City Council bought this land for millions of dollars to put a Police Station and Fire Station there. Everybody knows that is going to be the project. Talking about design now is getting the cart before the horse. Until the administration knows what the zoning is, you are limited on what you can design. Different zones will require the building to be placed in different locations. At this point we should be looking at only the zoning that would be appropriate. The city has asked for Institutional zoning because that is very appropriate for a Police or Fire Station. It's up to the City Council to decide whether or not they are going to agree to the Institutional zoning. There has been lots of discussion. I haven't been involved in it, but just listening, there has been a lot discussion and input on the design. At this point, we are at the zoning decision and not the design decision. Council Member Kinion: I would like to request that further discussion this evening be on the zoning. We enforce that on other people. We should respect that and comply as the city. City Attorney Kit Williams: I agree with you. Council Member Scroggin: I talked to a lot of people today and yesterday about this. I believe this needs to move forward. P-1 is correct and this location is correct. We need to have a meeting before this hits Planning Commission and have a large discussion. If we say now is not the time to talk about design, let's talk about design between now and Planning Commission. We need to have things worked out so we don't have to go to Planning Commission and tell Planning Commission you have to approve this the first night it hits you. I plan on hopefully voting on this tonight. I've received emails asking about just approving the zoning and not listen to people, but I disagree with those emails. There are going to be people of color that try to speak tonight and I hope we listen. If it doesn't cover the rezone that doesn't mean that we have to affect the decision, but I suggest we listen to people of color tonight. We can bring that discussion to the design elements between now and Planning Commission. Council Member Bunch: I agree with Council Member Kinion that we usually talk about the zoning first and we try to distance ourselves from the project, but this one is a little bit different. I'm in favor of voting tonight on the P-1 zoning and I encourage the other Council Members to do that as well. I appreciate Council Member Scroggin's comment that we have an input session before Planning Commission. We do have some pushback and it's not directed at zoning, it's directed at the entire project. Maybe we could divert a little bit of that and get some of it corralled before Planning Commission. We need to maintain that 50-foot setback. The Police Chief and Fire Chief are asking for it. They have good reason for that. I am in support of this wholeheartedly. If this is approved tonight, when do you think this would be coming to Planning? Garner Stoll: We had discussed making a trip to the Planning Commission with a conceptual design to get their input. We were hoping to do that in November. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville.. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 24 of 43 Wade Abernathy: That is correct. Council Member Bunch: In November we have a holiday. Are you thinking mid -November? Garner Stoll: We were hoping to do it the first meeting in November. Wade Abernathy: It would be the November 91h meeting. Garner Stoll: That is a conceptual discussion. Council Member Bunch: Before we take the conceptual plan to Planning, we could probably put something together. What are staff s thoughts? Susan Norton: I'm not sure exactly what are you asking. Council Member Bunch: If we have an input session of the public. Susan Norton: What would you be asking the public? Council Member Bunch: I wouldn't be asking the public much of anything. We would be listening to the public comments. I keep getting comments from people who are disturbed about the whole facility and I can't agree with that myself, but I understand their concerns. I want these people to have a chance to be heard. Some of the things I'm hearing as complaints, can possibly be addressed, and we can still have a new facility for our Police. I don't think it was one or the other. People are feeling like they have not been heard. If we could do that without slowing down the process, I'd be for that. Susan Norton: I have struggled with trying to figure out what people are missing in the conversation and feel that they haven't been heard. I have a hard time with a format. It's not that I don't want to do something and offer staff s support for whatever form it took, but I struggle with what level of public feedback there is beyond what we are talking about tonight and what will impact the chief security concerns, layout and the site that have any impact on the discussion that will go to the Planning Commission. It is a highly technical thing that I believe Garner and Wade have spoken too. We could listen, but I've had a hard time with that since we had our original public sessions. Most of the people I've been hearing would like us to move ahead with the design that we seem to be heading toward with the site layout. Council Member Bunch: I agree with that. I've heard from several people today. It's kind of the same argument we've had all along and it seems to be stemming from a desire not to build the facility at all. That should have been discussed two years ago. I always want to try to listen to everybody if I can and give them a chance to have their voice. I'm not in favor of slowing this down. I am in favor of the rezoning. Council Member Marsh: I would like to see the city ask the community what their priorities are for the site and the facilities and how this major public investment can be used to enhance the neighborhood, to improve relationships between the community and FPD and the Fire Department. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 25 of 43 Projects are better when the stakeholders are engaged from day one. The public doesn't need to see a plan already put together. They want to establish their priorities and then we need to take those and put together a plan based on those priorities. The fact that we already have schematic designs without having done this basic stakeholder engagement with our citizens who are paying for this and we answer to is unconscionable. We need to have that feedback first and those members of the community need to have an opportunity to speak. Council Member Kinion: Tonight, we're talking about if it's appropriate to zone this property to a specific rezoning. It seems to me if we're like every other rezoning that we've discussed, we could go ahead and rezone it and then that would allow us to go further with design. All of this design discussion before the rezoning is not the protocol that we take with anything else. I'm not trying to throw an argument to stop anything. I'm throwing in an argument to take the next step. We get the zoning done just like any other project and then we can go on with design and have an open discussion on the design because we know that it's been rezoned. If this property is not supposed to be rezoned for whatever reason, then we need to look at that. Council Member Bunch: So are you making a motion? Council Member Kinion: Yes, I move that we rezone this property. Council Member Bunch: We are on the first reading. So, we need to make a motion to go to the second reading. Mayor Jordan: We've got to take public comment. Council Member Scroggin: I feel like we're not discussing design. We are discussing when we're going to discuss the design. I don't think we're actually hitting that now. I want that meeting set up, hopefully soon and maybe tonight. When are we going to have that meeting? There's a lot of people that want us to stop this totally because we haven't had the conversation or have a plan for that conversation. If people see we have the plan for that conversation, maybe we'll have less comments tonight. Council Member Bunch: Susan, after our trip to the site, we sent out how many letters to the neighborhood? We had some sort of questionnaire? Susan Norton: After we had our Council workshop, which included staff, Council Members, stakeholders that had been identified as either living in the area or affiliated with some of the major institutions in the area, including a public school, the university, students and neighbors, so we had a reflective body of people there. After that, the group who helped us with that workshop identified from the consensus of the people who participated, the parameters that Chief spoke to a few moments ago. Then we were asked to put together a questionnaire using those parameters and the purpose statement from the workshop that we had. We distributed, I believe there were a thousand addresses within the neighborhood to Sarah Marsh's point about having feedback from people who live in the area. We also had an open questionnaire with those parameters and asking people to weigh the options. The feedback we got we had over 600 comments and the results of the questionnaire was open for three weeks. The mailers went out. The results of the questionnaire 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 26 of 43 were sent to each of you in an email where you had the opportunity to review those comments in detail before you then provided your feedback on the potential elements that Wade had discussed would go into the consideration for the conceptual design. So that is the public feedback we took. We felt from everything we read and back to Council Member Bunches comment, the great majority of the feedback we had was, would you please get on with building this voter approved building. The number of people who had disagreed in general that we should use taxpayer dollars at all, was a handful and those are the same people we are hearing from now who I believe feel they haven't been heard. Council Member Bunch: That's good to put it in perspective. We got 600 responses to the questionnaire or was that 600 responses total with a questionnaire and the mailer that went out? Susan Norton: It was total between 600 and 700. I don't have the precise number, but it was all of that. In fact, it was published back to the web and it's been there for people to review so that they could see the comments and respond even further. Quite frankly, our office has heard from no more than half a dozen people since that time. Council Member Bunch: That's good to know. I've heard from several just this week, but the majority of the people I've heard are in favor of going forward with it. That's good to help me put it in perspective because we've had all these different steps we have gone through. Thank you. Mayor Jordan spoke about taking public comment. Steve Smith, Bridgeport Drive: I'm in favor of this. I encourage you all to rezone this P-1. Let's build the Police Station. Josh Moody, 432 West Adams: The spring of 2019, a few thousand Fayetteville voters voted for this, along with ten total bond initiatives. It was kind of hidden in there with the rest of them. I'm not sure there was much public discussion at all before that or much awareness about it before that, prior to the special election. What Chief Reynolds referred to in December about was Steven Carr was a reprehensible tragedy. I hope that never happens here or anywhere again. What happened this summer has kind of changed the world. I have a feeling that several Fayetteville voters would change their votes now, being more aware of what's going on in our society. Progressive, no class white people, have finally become awake to the realities there are black and brown brothers and sisters never had the opportunity to forget. I assume I'm speaking out of turn because this is a rezoning issue, but I agree with Council Members Smith and Marsh that we should have a lot more public discussion about this and not pretend that what has transpired since we voted on this has not occurred. Mayor Jordan: Everybody, remember, stay on the rezoning issue. Leanna Jackson, 2383 North Silk Rose: I live on the west side of town and I work in Fayetteville as a teacher. I drive right through that area. Rezoning in that area frustrates me because I'm having to risk my life going to school to help raise our youth. Now I have to worry about all this construction, where this is ultimately an area loved for its agriculture. I think about the construction 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 27 of 43 and the Police in and out of that area. Rezoning in this area is not needed because it is not what's needed for Fayetteville. Nicholas Ciggelacus: I live at 1002 West Clinton Drive, Apartment A. I'm a law student at the University of Arkansas. I'm commenting in support of rezoning. It's clear to me the university and Northwest Arkansas has experienced tremendous growth. The city sprawl of Fayetteville continues to expand and the center of Fayetteville has changed. If we want the Police to be able to respond to issues anywhere in our city, they need a headquarters in a location that enables them to timely respond to issues and conflicts within our city. We talk about this being an issue of rezoning. There is a great risk for potential unintended consequences by voting this down. Voting this down is prohibiting, to my knowledge, any other public works in this area. As this area continues to grow, there will have to eventually be rezoning. We can have a discussion about the nature of whether or not this needs to be a Police Station at the next step of the process. Some other critics on this issue have expressed budgetary concerns regarding this amendment and that argument is a fallacy. The cities already budgeted for this through the state sales tax bond. David Freeman: I live on Gooseberry Lane just a few minutes north of where the Police Station is planned to be. I'd like to ask that we follow the standard procedure and hear this issue at three separate meetings before voting on it. My biggest worry is that this rezoning passes without the City Council considering the impact that this investment will have on our community. To my understanding, there are 12 factors we standardly consider when making a decision about a rezoning issue. Among those are safety, public opposition that is logical and reasonable, and good efficient civic design. It's frustrating to see the City Council choosing to exclude valid concerns that fall under these 12 factors. When we think about safety and fire protection, what about the safety of the people who are harassed by Police or the people who face intimidating retaliation for questioning the status quo? When we think about good civic design and efficiency, why do we choose to invest $36 million dollars in a state of the art facility when we could meet fundamental needs of our current Police force for much less. When we think about appropriate and best use of land, why don't we consider how the most effective way to build a safer community is to provide our people with the resources that they need. Maybe we could have one of these public comment sessions we've been asking for. Nakisha Snell: I live in Fayetteville off of Wedington. I am asking that the conversation around rezoning for this area be paused until we have the large public input session that was brought up by a couple of Council Members. My main concern is there are many residents, many of whom are black residents, who live on Deane and Porter and have had negative interactions with the FPD. We have not engaged those residents to give their input for any part of this process, of this conversation. I understand there was a vote on this in April 2019.1 understand and please correct me if I'm wrong, but there were no polling locations within Ward 2 where this jail will be located. Mayor Jordan: I've got to ask you to stay with the rezoning. Nakisha Snell: I am. This is about the rezoning. Susan Norton: You mentioned a jail. This is not a discussion about a jail. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 28 of 43 Nakisha Snell: I'm sorry, thank you. We have some concerns about the new Police Station. There are many residents who have just found out about this project within the past week and many of whom have just found out about this today. In thinking about the rezoning of this area, I ask that we pause this conversation until you have made a more significant effort to reach out directly to those residents who have been asking to be heard for months now. Peter Tonnessen, Ward 3: The city acquired these 12 acres' months ago. I would think the rezoning to P-1, Institutional or government facilities is perfect. At this point, it should just be an administrative detail. I wish the City Council would do this tonight and then get on to the next step. Thanks very much. Scott Berna: I support the rezoning. The City Council, I believe, and all the parties on the City Council were on the Council a year ago when this property was purchased. We knew at that time what the property was purchased for. The P-1 zoning is the perfect zoning for this piece of property for the intended use of the property. It's just going to drag things out longer if we do not go ahead and move forward with the obvious correct rezoning. The people I've spoken with in that neighborhood, are all in favor of this. They are all in favor of the Police. It's ludicrous for us to keep dragging this out. You approved a Fire Station two weeks ago with the same exact rezoning. There's no basis for the all of a sudden concern about P-1 zoning because it involves a Police Station. The citizens of Fayetteville have voted for this project. They want this project and they're making their voice heard they want this project moved forward. I recommend that the Council move forward with this project and this rezoning tonight. Thank you. Richelle Augustine, 1615 North Stable Avenue: I live a block from the Deane and Porter site. In recent months, I've had the opportunity to participate in the Urban Land Institute workshop with the City Council, the Police Department and other members of the community. Based on this work, I support the rezoning of the site to P-1 Institutional as it requires no variances and it allows the setback needed to provide employee safety. I support the rezoning of the property and I would welcome it to the neighborhood. Kenny Arredondo: It's my understanding this election was missing polling locations in two different Wards. I understood they were missing polls in Ward 1 and tonight, somebody said they were missing polls in Ward 2. That's not a democratic election. I've also seen a few people say that only 7% of people came out to vote on this. This doesn't sound like the people in the City of Fayetteville voted for this Police Station. Mayor Jordan: You have to stay with the rezoning. That decision has already been made. Kenny Arredondo: I'd like to say that when it comes to anything that deals with the Police, this is the taxpayers land. This is what people work for and pay out of their paycheck to decide what happens in their community. The fact that it was even in question we should have a public discussion about this, is not a good sign for the people who live here. You could come to us about designing it, but we want to talk about the zoning of what taxpayers paid for. To leave it up to a group of City Council Members is not very democratic. I would like a public discussion to see exactly how people responded to those surveys. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 29 of 43 Mayor Jordan: You've got to stay with the rezoning. Talk about the rezoning. Kenny Arredondo: The people in that area should be able to determine what's being zoned next to where they live because they are the taxpayers. I would also like to talk about Officer safety. Nobody wants to be attacked. In 2019, there were 40 some odd officers killed in the line of duty by felonious acts. Mayor Jordan: You've got to stay with the rezoning. Jacob Hodges: I'm not speaking for Kenny. My name is Jacob Hodges. The zoning is about officer safety. I heard Chief Reynolds say that a Police Officer had been hit by a car. I believe the zoning policy is about what that extra land is being zoned as. You all want some distance out to where people can't access that land and it's just left for the Police. I know several people who have been brutalized by the Police, including myself. Mayor Jordan: Don't get into that. Stay with the rezoning. Jacob Hodges stated we are talking about zoning. He stated if we're going to talk about the taxpayers' money and what it should be going to, it should be going to keeping us safe. He spoke about people being disproportionately attacked by officers. Susan Norton: Mayor, before I call on the next member of the public, I want to remind people of some things. The Council has had no fewer than four distinct action items on this particular topic alone, surrounding the bond election before and after. There have been discussions, public discussions with agenda meetings and then Council decisions that required public feedback. I just wanted to point that out. If anyone has forgotten, those eight action items are on the public website and have been ever since this discussion has been going on for two years. Mayor Jordan: Also, when the Council passed the sentence to the vote of the people about November 2018, I spent the next five months going and having public meetings with the people to see what they thought about the 10 questions. We discussed these issues. I know we had at least 18 of those. So, if people didn't know, I don't know what to tell them. I know that Susan just got through talking about sending out 1,000 letters in that area. I'm a little surprised that nobody knows about anything. There have been public input sessions that I had just during the campaign process of trying to pass all 10 questions Natalie Morris: I live at 9 East Lover's Lane in Ward 1. We also have a second residence at 1521 West Cedar Street, which is in Ward 2 and directly down the street from the proposed site. I am asking you to vote in favor of the rezoning of this to Institutional. The voters did speak in 2019 and it was 79% in favor of Fire for the bond issue and 70 % for Police. This is just the next step in and making sure we progress towards what the people vote for and asked for. I would like to recognize Chief Reynolds for his award as Chief of the Year from the AACOP. Jeff Koenig, 2853 North Rivercrest: I urge you to move forward and rezone this to P-1 Institutional. It's the best use of the property. It needs to be done in order to keep the project on track. I appreciate Susan Norton detailing the survey that went out. If you read the results of that 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 30 of 43 survey, which I know that you have, overwhelmingly in the comments Police safety is the number one concern. The number two concern is moving the project forward. We can't move the project forward if we don't get this rezoning done. During the campaign, the voters' reaction to the Police Station was overwhelmingly positive, not only at the polls, but in the discussions and the presentations. It's time to move forward and zone this. Derek Caquelin, 2660 West Wedington Drive: An important part of this discussion is the cultural impact of what you're rezoning for. It's just as relevant to the conversation about rezoning as the technical. There are a lot of other things that go into rezoning, especially for what it's being rezoned for. The Council and the Mayor feel like there's been a high standard of democracy involved with this process, but I feel like you can't deny there are many people voicing that the efforts to outreach about this rezoning was not sufficient. I understand that you guys feel like there has been a lot of participation, but from the numbers I heard in that survey and also who voted, that was by no means a statistically significant portion of these Wards or our city as a whole. We can't say the people of Fayetteville have spoken. Mayor Jordan: Let's stay with the rezoning. Derek Caquelin stated this is important to the conversation about rezoning and these people's participation in voting democratically to participate and allow this rezoning. He spoke about people being impacted culturally. He spoke about people not being in a privileged position to be able to be involved with the conversation about rezoning. He requested more public outreach. Jared Carter,1564 West Cedar spoke about citizens not being silenced because their words are the people who are speaking up for people who were not represented when the vote occurred. He spoke about his concerns of Wards not being represented. He stated it's disgusting for Mayor Jordan, Susan, and Sarah to continually try to silence people and say let's vote. He stated he lives a block and a half from where the Police Station will be and he has a problem with it. He spoke about representing his area of town. He stated constant dealings with the Police is not just a situation, it's everyday life. He stated the whole reason we have these meetings and that you people are in office, is that when something isn't right, we can change it. Simone Cottrell, Ward 2: Thank you to Sarah Marsh and Kyle Smith for bringing up some valid concerns regarding the design and therefore the rezoning of this area. I want to thank David Freeman for bringing up some great points because that was some new information I wasn't aware of. I would love for the Council to strongly consider adding additional community conversations to this. Thank you so much for sending out the 1,000 letters to get feedback and getting 600. What I didn't hear is how many of those 600 have disabilities or are in low poverty areas. That's something that concerns me when we get community input as to who's being represented. 2020 has been a year of things going badly for a lot of people. Our mindsets have changed. If we can get those conversations, it could help further what Fayetteville wants to be. I want to address that for a lot of us who may not have been super active in community politics in the past, we are present now. Have grace for us to speak, because this is not easy to do. Alex Mauroner, Ward 2 stated he is just off Deane Street from the property in question for the rezoning. He stated he is firmly against rezoning. He spoke about traffic concerns. He stated he 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 31 of 43 feels like traffic will be blocking the Police Station at peak hours and hindering the ability of officers and fire trucks to get in and out. He stated the location doesn't seem like the best fit. He spoke about it being a narrow two lane road. He spoke about the charm of the area and the scenery being beautiful. He stated setting the building back for blast zones was alarming to him and a little shocking because he hadn't even considered that. Gwendolyn Mauroner stated she is against this rezoning. She stated it is important to listen to all of the voices who are telling you they .are not being heard. She spoke about people being interrupted as they're trying to speak. She stated the rezoning is related to so many other things. She stated only 7% of the people in Fayetteville voted and isn't representative of people who want this. She stated people in the neighborhood want more public input and it should be a priority before Council moves forward. She stated receiving 600 surveys is not representative of the people of Fayetteville. She spoke about the beauty of the area. Sue Callaway, 2848 South Club Oak Drive, Ward 1. She stated she would encourage the City Council Members to get on with the building of this wonderful facility. She stated a year ago her husband and she discussed the bond issue at length. She stated the main reason they voted for the bond issue was because of this Police Station. She stated it is needed and is in a wonderful location. She stated the only reason someone wouldn't want police interaction is if you're doing something wrong. Mayor Jordan: You have to stay with the rezoning. Sue Callaway: My preference would be for every City Council Member to vote P-1 for the rezoning. It's been voted upon and it's what the people of Fayetteville want. Akan Anyieth stated he is against the rezoning. He stated he plans to move to Fayetteville soon. He stated the number one vote to be taken is the people who are living in that area. He stated if you ask them if they had a single positive encounter with the Police, they'll say no. He stated something can be done about that, but as it is right now, without anything being done, things aren't just going to change. He stated he is glad there's going to be a damper in the shooting range, but it's still a form of noise pollution. He stated the people voting for it don't live in that neighborhood and are not going to be affected by it. He stated he hadn't noticed a person of color supporting this bill. He stated people who are supporting it are people who are going to be affected positively by it and not negatively affected by it through any form of harassment. He stated he's not saying it's intentional, but sometimes there may be a bias that is there. He spoke about ignorance, prejudice, and racism. Council Member Petty: I made a commitment tonight to listen as intently as I could before I decided to speak out and share my thoughts. Not just tonight, but also all the other communications I've been having about this. I have some things to criticize tonight about what I've heard and to support. I'm going to support the rezoning. The rezoning is not the thing we should be focused on or the main part of the conversation. I don't mean for the vote tonight, I mean, in general. I believe we can do a lot more with this land than we've been presented with. That's why I worked so hard to make sure the future uses were maintained and the area was clearly delineated. Whether this rezoning goes to P-1 or goes to one of the other acronyms we have, I don't feel it's very 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 32 of 43 consequential for any of the things I've heard citizens express their concerns about or their hopes for this project. The zoning part of that broader conversation, it feels like a very small piece in a piece that actually doesn't make a whole lot of difference whenever it comes to the kinds of programing or the kinds of criticisms and concerns we've heard. The main point of the zoning is to control a little bit of where buildings get placed on the site and the zoning doesn't really control at all. It's not strictly true, but for practical purposes, the zoning doesn't really control what happens inside the buildings very much at all, which is why I'm comfortable with P-l. Originally, I had some concerns with the way the site setbacks were drawn in the first designs we saw, but with the way the schematic seems to be progressing now, the setback includes a trail and some additional trees. It's a plaza at the corner, which is what I expect to see when this goes to Planning Commission and that changes my consideration about the setbacks itself. When it came to the zoning, having the site designed a little bit better was the deal breaker, the deal maker for me on the zoning itself. I feel like with the commitment today, the setback will have the design elements I just mentioned within it and with the parking moved out for street parking, I'm okay with the zoning part proceeding. I do have some criticisms about what's been expressed or what's been characterized tonight. I wanted to go back over the timeline. It's really convenient, especially in an election season, to let our friends blame the City Council for anything. I feel like that's a lot of what has happened over the past six months in regards to this project. It seems like it's been very easy just to let the community say anything and just see where it goes and we'll handle it whenever it comes to these public hearings. I don't think that's a very good community process. The first time the City Council saw this site design was in May. I never got a preview. I never even got to sit down with anybody and look at what people were thinking. To my knowledge, I don't think any of the other Council Members were invited to do so either. The first time I saw this was when it was presented to that meeting in May. Since then, the Council has been blamed for delaying this process because we ask normal questions. If anybody had sought a meeting with me three months earlier or two months earlier, whenever those site designs were just in a sketch format, my feedback would have been exactly the same. We would've had a lot more time to get ahead of this. Then after it was presented to the Council for the first time, 60 days went by before we had our workshop, which I supported. I was eager to do that workshop and it was run okay. It was successful for its purposes. The fact is, 60 days went by so we could correct the design with response to Council comments that should have been taken and received much earlier than that. Since then, we were told we would have a follow up session, which we learned tonight has been canceled. In the meantime, it's totally correct to say the schematics have been being worked on in good faith. I don't mean to lay out this timeline to say that one group deserves blame or another group deserves blame. It seems like a lot of people are turning the timeline into what they want it to be. I just spent the last 20 minutes listening and searching through my in -boxes to find the survey results and the way they were characterized, the demographic profiles, the cross tabs or anything like that for the surveys. I kind of would have expected to see some of that information presented tonight to justify the rezoning, but we haven't seen it. I don't need to see that for the rezoning itself, but I do feel like I need to see it whenever it comes to the broader community discussion. This process wasn't normal. Now it is becoming normal, but it didn't start that way and that's a big cause in where we're at on the timeline. There's at least 60 days in the process that we've taken now that could have been avoided if the Council had just been checked in with during schematic design, not at the end of schematic design. This is my point about the rezoning maybe not being the best place for community members to focus their energies going forward. My experience has really been quite a bit different than a lot of people that we've heard from on both sides. I really haven't interacted 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 33 of 43 with the Police at all. I don't have negative experiences and I don't have a whole lot of positive experiences. We don't have a community plan for public safety. We have one for transportation, recycling and trash, 71-B, and for bike lanes. We've done all this kind of adhoc. One of the reasons this conversation about the Police Station feels so important for a lot of community members who support it is because we went so long waiting to have this conversation. When it came time, all we've talked about is what the headquarters should look like. There's a whole lot more to talk about even after we make these decisions about the headquarters. We need a community master plan for public safety and we should give the same amount or even more attention to than we do with other planning efforts. This rezoning feels like an appropriate rezoning for the uses that are proposed. If we were putting any civic uses on this site, mental health facilities, housing services, whether it's Police or not, P-1 zoning is probably the right zoning because it's for civic uses. I still have this big concern that hasn't been addressed and it feels like it's getting pushed aside that we don't have any kind of a community long term plan for public safety. Council Member Smith has mentioned several times that we should have a citizen oversight committee and I expressed support for that. Maybe it should be an oversight and planning committee so we can get some of these things figured out for the long term and know in advance where we should be headed for the next 10 years. Council Member Bunch: I'm one to look at this in terms of if we were looking at any other rezoning. Several people made comments about how much they liked the open land that was there. We always have this concern from neighborhoods that don't want something when there's an open piece of land, they enjoy the way that it looks now, but it's not their land. If the university wanted to take that whole farm out and build something there, they would be coming and asking for a rezoning and it's their land. We would probably be looking at it the same way as we're looking at this in some respects. I don't think that the fact it's a university farm now, means that it should be a university farm forever. Some of the comments are about the traffic this is going to create. We are also talking about redesigning the road there. This is not just going to be the same road with this facility plopped down in the field. We've talked about a stoplight, roundabout, and a public transit stop. Those are all things we're talking about in conjunction with this. Tonight, it's just the rezoning and whether this is a good location for this facility. I would say it's a great location for this facility. It is convenient to I-49. The growth is in west Fayetteville. It's not downtown anymore. The center of Fayetteville has moved away a little bit. If we want to find a large chunk of vacant land, it's really hard. You're not going to find that in Ward 3 that would fit this. I'm in favor of the rezoning. We can get the traffic issues worked out, if there are any. With the growth we're having in west Fayetteville, this is a perfect place for a Fire Station. It increases the safety of this whole area of town if we have a Fire Station over there. If you live closer to a Fire Station, it helps with your insurance rate. Those are issues I'm looking at from strictly the rezoning perspective. I'm going to support the P-1 rezoning. Council Member Smith: I agree with Council Members, Bunch and Petty. We chose the location here a long time ago. We didn't buy the land expecting not to rezone it or expecting not to build the project that we bought it for. That was its purpose. I've tried to be honest with folks in the community throughout the conversation that we're going to build a Police Station. We're going to build a Fire Station. Voters approved it. We've borrowed the money. We're obligated to follow through with the plan and this is where we decided to put it. It has been complicated every step of the way. The land purchase was wrapped up in Lewis Park. The construction is wrapped up in a trail project. That's why I've been so focused through the whole thing on making sure we get the 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www Fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 34 of 43 details right because it interacts in so many other areas. When it comes to the conversation, I do not think we have gotten the details right. The people keep coming back here every opportunity they get to tell us. Perception is reality. We may have had eight public meetings; we've seen the same thing at all of them. The topics at these meetings are so constrained that people can't say what they have to say and that's why it's important we do get this forum together. They may be able to speak here, but they're not being heard. They're telling us that over and over again. Since our Ward meeting back in July, we've been asking for some form of public conversation that goes beyond the scope of just the things that we're allowed to deal with during an agenda item here. Our conversation has been bureaucracy to death, and that's a problem. This is the second bond project that's become unnecessarily contentious because of poor communication and that's something we can get better at. As for the rezoning or the project in general, I have been accused of a lot, but I've never wanted to slow it down. That's why we've been trying to have these conversations earlier, like Council Member Petty was saying. I've gotten a hint tonight that there are some expectations we don't follow normal procedures. Are we on schedule as we originally planned to be? Mayor Jordan: Yes, we are. Council Member Smith: Did we come to this meeting tonight with the expectation that we were going to suspend the rules and pass all three readings in one night to stay on schedule? Susan Norton: We could only hope. Mayor Jordan: I agree with Susan. The schedule is tight, but we are on budget. We're on time right now. Council Member Smith: Will we still be on schedule if we take multiple meetings on this? Wade Abernathy: We are trying to get something to the Planning Commission in November. We are changing the procurement of this project to fast track, where before we were going to get the whole project put together and then bid it as one. In order to stay on schedule, we're going to be putting this out in several packages. We're going to start with the grading package. Then we'll do a foundation and steel package. Then we'll do a building envelope package and then a finished package. Council Member Smith: That sounds like a lot of steps that have to go pretty rapid fire and we came tonight expecting a final decision? We would never expect that from an applicant or never allow an applicant to expect that. This goes to the frustrations we've been having that we still haven't seen what that consensus that we supposedly developed in private meetings was until tonight. There's an Exhibit A amendment that was presented that we haven't even discussed and would be hard to discuss without knowing which consensus plan we pulled. Those are the kinds of conversations we would normally have. Just a quarter mile here, we've got a neighborhood that we talked about so many times this year. How it's a stable, modest, affordable neighborhood and even when we know how the decisions are going to go, because we're all pretty good vote counters here, if there's controversy, we wait. We're not going to follow that protocol tonight because we have to keep this project on schedule to meet the commitments that we've made to voters. I'm going to support the zoning. I'd probably prefer to support it in its all P-1 style, even though I 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 35 of 43 would rather carve out an area for later, but until we know where that area is going to be, I don't feel comfortable getting into that level of detail. I hope we can be on the record knowing that we're going to come back and get those details right later on when we decide where our future uses are going. We'll have another rezoning where we carve that piece out again, but we don't even have the information we need to make those decisions and we've got a deadline to meet. Council Member Kinion: The city owns this property regardless of what they're going to use it for, P-1 is the right zoning. I'm going to make my choice on whether to support it or not based on what is allowed by right within a zoning that we're considering. To me, it's that easy and this is step one. We know the steps we have to take. We know the timeline we have to follow. We can go ahead and get it zoned and we can still have public input on what to do with the property. We can still have public input on how people feel about a Police Station. This does not prevent that. I'm voting for this because it is a good zoning for this specific piece of property and that's what I'm considering tonight, because that's how we do zoning. Council Member Bunch: A lot of the comments that were made tonight that didn't have that much to do with zoning, that had to do with feelings of community members. The zoning does not change those and we can still have those conversations with a new facility. It's not an either or thing, as far as I'm concerned. Our current Police facility is so woefully inadequate. They have worked that building around until they have worn the hide off of it trying to remodel it to make it fit to what a growing town needs. I don't know where policing will be in 20 years, but this facility is going to last a lot longer than 20 years. The conversations about where we want policing to go in 20 years, we can have those conversations even with a new building. P-1 is the correct zoning. This is just step one and it does not prevent us from having a meeting before we have Planning Commission. Even though we've had a lot of opportunity for public input, the conversation starts when the conversation starts. Council Member Kinion moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council Member Bunch seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed 7-1. Council Members Gutierrez, Marsh, Kinion, Petty, Scroggin, Bunch and Turk voting yes. Council Member Smith voting no. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Council Member Marsh: Can we set a date for the public input meeting? Council Member Scroggin: I am totally fine with that. Council Member Marsh: I feel like that's a priority the community has expressed over and over again. As we march forward, I want to know we're going to receive public input. Mayor Jordan: Are going to leave it here? Council Member Marsh: I think we're going to get the administration's commitment of a date for this public input session the public keeps asking for. I think we can then move on to the third reading. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 36 of 43 Mayor Jordan: Well, I know you all are hearing that people are wanting to hold things up. I will tell you in my office they don't want to hold it up. The e-mails I'm getting are saying we want to the Police Station built and we need to move it along. Council Member Scroggin: We're hoping to move forward tonight. We just want a date for a meeting before the Planning Commission. I think you have the vote tonight to move forward to Planning Commission, but we need that date. Susan Norton: I don't understand how someone can make up a date with all of you. I mean, I don't have a calendar that I can magically say this is the date. City Attorney Kit Williams: I've been listening to the Council and this is an unusual situation. It's not just a regular group coming through. The City Council does have some rights to obviously impact this development. The Planning Commission, if the land is rezoned tonight, I think what I've heard from Wade is they're going to try to have a concept plat to be going to the Planning Commission in November. They want to have it ready for the Agenda Session for the Planning Commission in the first week in November. A concept plat is basically to get input back from the Planning Commission. I don't think it'd be improper to have the concept plat also come to the owners, which is the City Council, to get their input. At about the same time, if not before the Planning Commission. It'll be a while before we can get the concept plat because they have to rezone the land first so they can put the engineering work in to get the concept plat. I would think by the time it's ready for the Planning Commission, the City Council would be ready for it, too. I think it could be brought maybe to the first meeting in November to the City Council. They probably wouldn't be out by the Agenda Session, but I think it could be out for the meeting. A concept plat is to get input back from the City Council or the Planning Commission or the public. I think that would be one meeting before it actually got to the Planning Commission. If we made it on that City Council night, everybody's going to be here. Council Member Marsh: Kit, I think you misunderstand the intent of what we're asking for. We're not asking for the City Council to review a concept plan. We're asking for the public input to be heard before a concept plan is developed. City Attorney Kit Williams: I'm afraid that will probably push it way back, so I guess forget what I said. Council Member Marsh: I think it's the urgency on this public meeting that the public has been asking for and the City Council has been asking for. We want the input session on the schedule as soon as possible so we can keep this project moving along in a way that's consistent with the values of this community. Council Member Smith: I think it would be catastrophically unfair to our Planning Commission to set them up to have the first meeting where we know that they are going to be bombarded with policy feedback instead of planning feedback. That's our job. We need to be prepared to take that burden on before they get it so that they don't have too. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteviIle-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 37 of 43 Susan Norton: I still struggle with what the public feedback session is. Is it as comprehensive as the discussion of a master community plan for public safety as Council Member Petty mentioned? Is it some kind of feedback on the elements that are going to go into the concept, which in fact we already have? Council Members Marsh or Scroggin, describe what a public feedback session format would look like? Council Member Scroggin: It could be similar to what we did with ULI, except instead of it just being us, it's citizens. Maybe all we can do at this point is look at the site plans. I've seen site plans, but I don't know if anybody else has seen site plans outside of the people that are currently in this meeting, unless we took screenshots and gave it to them. That hasn't been made public. So either of those need to happen. Mayor Jordan: What do you all want us to do here? Susan Norton: A session in which Wade would bring similar site elements and options as we shared with you all? Council Member Scroggin: Unfortunately, given the time, that may be the best we can do. We should have had something similar to ULI for citizens nine months ago, but I'm okay if at the end of Agenda Session, we allow people to talk. It would probably be late, but most of us can come to Agenda Sessions because we rotate our life around that and then hopefully citizens can as well. Susan Norton: Are you suggesting we ask citizens to react to the conceptual plan that we would design before we go to Planning Commission? Council Member Scroggin: Yes, I'm okay with that. I wish we had done more like the ULI nine months ago, but that's already passed. Council Member Marsh: I would like to know the community priorities for the site and facilities and what we need to do to ensure we're meeting the community's goals in terms of making this a friendly facility that's going to help protect and serve the community. We need to just listen. I'm getting a ton of feedback from the community. People are angry about a lot of different things and there's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of people that want to express their feelings about this and we have a responsibility to listen. There may be some great ideas in there and we owe it to the community to listen. They are telling us they want to talk. They want to speak so badly that they're staying up past 9:00 p.m. to speak on rezoning issues about this because we haven't given them an appropriate venue to express their concerns. An open ended session, a charrette, as well as some guided questions. We have schematic plans, apparently. It's far enough along that we can carve out areas to zone different things. Show that and let people discuss the strengths and weaknesses of those strategies, but most of all, listen to the priorities of the community. Susan Norton: I don't know how to commit to that. I just don't know how to do it. Council Member Scroggin: ULI has done a meeting before. Maybe they can do another one and we just need a date. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 38 of 43 Susan Norton: I don't know that's the case. It was not that simple to arrange schedules for getting them in the first place, which was one of the reasons it took 60 days. Council Member Smith: I'm going to suggest that it might be as simple as turning on a microphone and then not cutting off the people of color who want to speak. Susan Norton: Would you have any kind of rules of engagement? Council Member Smith: I'm not sure I want to sit here on a Zoom meeting full of white people and write those. Susan Norton: I am expressing the fact that I really would love to do what the community would like and what you all would like. You have not been instructive enough to help me understand how to conduct such a workshop. Council Member Scroggin: What are the Agenda Sessions this month? Kara Paxton, City Clerk Treasurer: The next Agenda Sessions are October 13th, October 27th, November 1 Oth, and November 24th. Council Member Scroggin: I think we could do something on the 27th. The 13th is probably a little too soon. If we're just going to listen and give them three minutes and not cut them off, that actually doesn't take a lot of planning. Susan Norton: If that's what you want, that doesn't take any planning at all. Mayor Jordan: If you want to have a Town Hall meeting where you just kind of turn everybody loose, we can do that. Council Member Scroggin: I would like that. Council Member Marsh: That's a good start. Wade Abernathy: The 13th might be a little close, since we're just getting the rezone tonight, but the 27th, we might be able to have a conceptual a little closer. Council Member Scroggin: Could we have both meetings? A town hall on the 13th and then conceptual maps on the 27th? Susan Norton: Are there any other subcommittees scheduled for after the agenda on the 13th? There was a brief discussion about other meeting being held. Mayor Jordan requested to know what the ground rules would be for the Town Hall meeting. 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www Fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 39 of 43 Council Member Scroggin: I think we could have the date and then we might be able to have some ground rules by the 13th, but if we don't, then it's an open mic. I really want some dates and the people that want to speak want some dates. There was a brief discussion about the planning of dates and what it would entail. Council Member Bunch: I want to make sure the city can do what we're asking them to do. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask if we're going to have two meetings and if we can actually pull it together. Council Member Turk: Wade, do you think that's reasonable? Is that something you can meet or is it just impossible? Wade Abernathy: I think we can have some conceptual drawings, like a conceptual site plan by the 27th. I don't think we can have anything put together on the 13th. The roadway would still be very conceptual, with some of the on -street parking, but, yes, as far as the 27th goes. Council Member Turk: If you had a lot of feedback on the 27th with your conceptual drawing, does that give you enough time to make changes and adjustments before the Planning Commission meeting that you're hoping to present much of this to? Garner Stoll: The purpose of the first meeting with this Planning Commission is to get their input. I don't think there's a conflict with input from the public on the 27th and then going to the Planning Commission. The first time we talk to the Planning Commission, we do not want to be in a position to ask them to make a decision. That's the whole point of the conceptual meeting. Council Member Turk: Thank you for clarifying. I feel like there have been opportunities to express the public's view about this Police Station on numerous occasions through the online survey. People came out to the site. There's been other opportunities where they've expressed their concerns about this. If we're going to have an open mic, I want to make sure it's constructive and there's no hate speech. That we do have some rules of order and that it is a positive spirit and not just something where we burn the house down. I don't think that's helpful for anybody. I would like us to develop something that's reasonable, not a waste of our time and just not make things worse in Fayetteville. I'm definitely voting for a Police Station at that location. I'm sure I'd love to hear from folks, but I am solidly voting for that. I just don't think much can persuade me to vote differently. The station we have by City Hall is too small and too old. We have serious safety problems from the results of Steven Carr's death last year. We need a new Police Station. This is not a waste of taxpayers' money. I'm sorry people did not get out and vote or did not hear about the vote, but most of the people that voted wanted this. 71 % is quite a bit. I hope we can move forward on this and get this going. Let's make our input constructive for the process and for our great city. Council Member Scroggin: I'm pretty sure all of us plan on voting for P-1 tonight. We're just making sure it moves forward and if we have listened to most everybody, then the things we find out on the 13th would have already been in the schematics we'll see on the 27th. They wouldn't 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 40 of 43 have to change a lot if we have already implemented that and then maybe it doesn't change the schematics at all, but people that feel like they haven't been heard, get to talk. Mayor Jordan: I think we'll certainly hear from some people. Council Member Scroggin: I think we're trying to do this in lieu of having three meetings because we don't want to hold this up. That's what people asked us to do. Instead of holding it three times, which would push it back into December, let's do this. Mayor Jordan: I want to explain to you, if you don't have some sort of structure and some sort of rules, then the thing could just turn into chaos. I don't think anybody wants that. Council Member Marsh: I have confidence in our staff they can do that. Even if it's as simple as a strength, opportunities, weaknesses, and priorities analysis. What I'm hearing over and over again from the community is they don't feel like they're being listened to. We need to provide a venue to take public input at a point in time where it can translate into meaningful improvements in the quality of this facility. I am fully committed to building the new public safety headquarters in this location, but I want the community's feedback considered. That is our opportunity to make this the best facility it can be and serve the community in the best way that it can. I'm tired of having to explain it to everyone who sends me a message. I'd like them to know where we are in the process, how we got there, what decisions have been made and what haven't. I want them to have an appropriate place to submit their comments rather than having to talk about larger issues on a rezoning. I also want to second Council Member Petty's call for a community public safety plan. We need that. Maybe some of the feedback we get during these input sessions can help inform those discussions and how that process moves forward. We all want this to move forward, but we need to do it with the input of the community. Susan Norton: Council Member Marsh, would it work if we took the instrument that we devised, where we got the first round of feedback as the thing we could use to generate the conversation? Then just say these are parameters that have been discussed, like we tried to do with the online and then bring in real time? Is that enough of a structure that would generate the conversation you're looking for? Council Member Marsh: Let's do that, but include the community this time and make sure we get the diversity of voices that adequately represent our community. Susan Norton: We could advertise that instrument is open again and we'll use that format of feedback when we have our open mic. Is that a good idea? Council Member Marsh: What is the instruments you're talking about? Susan Norton: It's the questionnaire we designed that went to the households that sat on the website for three weeks that provided the reaction to the initial workshop. There was a purpose statement for this Police Station and then there were different design parameters, basic concepts like Wade and the Chief have talked about with respect to the positioning on the site for LEED, 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 41 of 43 the setbacks for safety and security. All the different things that went into the placement of the elements on the potential site. Council Member Marsh: I'm looking for more of a basic discussion and not talking about particulars on the site. Almost the discussion that generated that statement, in terms of identifying the priorities of the community rather than asking them to rank design features. Council Member Smith: What was just described sounds like a lot more talking and less listening. We can flip that around. Susan Norton: Right, I didn't want to have anything to say. I thought we could open that instrument up. Here it is and respond to this. Council Member Smith: One of the cautions I would have on reposting that and providing that is the prompt that we are looking at a neighborhood we know has perhaps more challenges with digital access than some of the folks who may have responded before. Susan Norton: If you want it next Tuesday, I don't think we have much choice besides digital with Zooming and phone calls. Council Member Smith: There's time to figure that out. It sounds like we've got dates. I think the request is for a commitment of dates and then we can move on tonight. We can trust staff to come up with something that's going to work. I would strongly suggest including some diverse voices. Maybe utilize the Mayor's African -American Council for some input and bounce ideas off of them in that process just to make sure it's an inclusive process. Council Member Gutierrez: It was very important for me to hear what everyone was saying, public input wise. I'm going into this absolutely in support of the rezoning and having a public safety campus that's state of the art. I'm supporting our Police to have a safe place to work. Everyone wants a safe place to work. Coming back to Chief Reynolds statement that they need to be protected to protect the community is very important and we have an obligation to our community to have a relationship building opportunity and have it kicked off with a public input meeting. I am sad and don't know why or how, but somehow public input became solely the online survey. I understand there was some hesitation about why that is because we have this larger question that at some point we were going to have to face and that is, there are some people who don't want any Police at all. I am not of that camp and it doesn't sound like any of the Council Members. If we had an opportunity where we said, what does public safety look like in Fayetteville or what is safety in Fayetteville for you, that could be a great general conversation starter. I think it needs to be a continuing conversation with the people who live in that community, especially if they are people of color who do not feel safe. I'm concerned about Miss Jackson, who says she's going to go to work to teach and she's concerned. I hope maybe one day I would like to meet Miss Jackson and introduce her to Chief Reynolds and have some conversations there. When we have this kind of concern in our community, it means we need to do other things. I think we're trying to talk about race, safety and a public headquarters. It's too much in one conversation. We have people on one side who are ready for the best Police Headquarters and then we have people on the other side who don't feel safe. We have to acknowledge and empathize for each side. Otherwise, we 113 West Mountain Fayetteville. AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 42 of 43 don't feel we can be heard. Even if it was just one meeting that says this is the beginning of a community conversation and then maybe a community listening session that allows people three to five minutes with the same rules of engagement in the City Council. Give people the mic and say, we're going to keep talking about public safety and develop this plan that Council Member Petty has mentioned and have it as a parallel discussion that we will need the Police Headquarters. We need it to be built yesterday. What I would love is for the people who said they're not feeling they're engaged or haven't been listened too, please reach out to Chief of Staff and the Mayor. Please reach out to your City Council Members to get involved and engaged. We need to move forward with the Police Station. Council Member Bunch: I think the conversation needs to go on much longer than these two meetings. It's going be a lengthier process. It would be fitting to have a long range plan that involves the community. We can't pull that out tonight. Did you suggest one meeting or two meetings before? Council Member Gutierrez: I feel that having one meeting is a good faith effort to get input on the Police Headquarters. I feel like there's a hesitation because there might be people there who don't want any Police. I think what we need to think about potentially, is to make the question broader, such as what does public safety in Fayetteville look like for you. It's not necessarily about the site, but it's the first kickoff to some type of safety in Fayetteville plan. Council Member Bunch: That's a good idea. Council Member Gutierrez: I think what Council Member Marsh is saying and I completely agree. We're trying to develop something for the community. Except for the design brief from the designer's standpoint, it hasn't included the key stakeholders, which are those immediate neighbors and maybe some of those people that feel they have been left out. Even though from our standpoint and I trust Chief of Staff, Susan Norton, that she has done her due diligence to send out the letters. It is very difficult to reach a lot of people, especially during COVID. Can we do a second try to do a general meeting and please the people who say they were not included or feel like they're left out? Please invite and extend the invitation, personalized invitation when we set this meeting. That way, people can be at the table. Council Member Bunch: I'm trying to remember who the stakeholders were that were invited to our meeting, but they were people that lived in the area. They were at the school. Quite a few people were invited. Not everyone could make it, I suppose. Susan Norton: That's true. The ULI folks did a lot of invitations and were able to get some people in interview sessions that were not able to join during the workshop. The public school was there. The university students were there. There were different community members that Chief Reynolds had worked with as partners in his community policing. We tried to do a broad brush of a lot of different stakeholders. Reaching every member of the community is always difficult. It's pretty hard in COVID times and mailers don't work. Other than personal phone calls to every address, I'm not sure how to make sure everyone hears. If you set a date tonight and the first meeting is a general conversation where anybody who is listening tonight knows they can come, and we'll go ahead and do the same kind of advertising we do for all the other meetings we do. It's pretty hard 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar.gov City Council Meeting Minutes October 6, 2020 Page 43 of 43 to get people out these days. I don't know if you remember when Yolanda was talking last week about this 30 days' worth of CDBG public meetings that people had said they wanted to provide feedback for, but didn't come. I'm not sure how to ensure that the voices you want to hear will actually come next Tuesday and the Tuesday after that. Mayor Jordan: We will have an open mic and we will control it the best we can. Council Member Scroggin: Sounds like we have dates. I trust staff and the Mayor's office. I love working with this Mayor. I know that this is difficult. I think we'll keep moving forward. Mayor Jordan: We'll put it together. Council Member Scroggin moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading. Council Member Smith seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance. Mayor Jordan asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the ordinance passed unanimously. Ordinance 6366 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk Announcements: None City Council Agenda Session Presentations: Agenda Session Presentation - 10 Year Transit Development Plan. Adjournment: 10:27 p.m. 0ER K j1111I l r f1l�/i _�• N 0 G1T Y p� •9`rG • '. I) ;rn Kara Paxton, Cit4aer Treasures FA1'ETTEV,ttE;;= NSP`' did SON � Ov%��`��. i►r 113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www fayetteville-ar gov