HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-07-19 - Minutes -Council Member Sonia Har%eN
Ward I Position I
Council Member D'Andre Jones
Ward I Position 2
Council Member Mark Kinion
Ward 2 Position I
Council Member Mike Wiederkehr
Ward 2 Position 2
Mavor Lioneld Jordan
City Attorney Kit Williams
Citv Clerk Treasurer Kara Paxton
City of Fayetteville Arkansas
City Council Meeting
July 19, 2022
City Council Meeting Minutes
July 19, 2022
Page I of 28
Council Member Sloan Scroggin
Ward 3 Position I
Council Member Sarah Bunch
Ward 3 Position 2
Council Member Teresa Turk
Ward 4 Position I
Council kiember Holly Hertzberg
Ward 4 Position 2
A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council was held on July 19, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. in Room
219 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville,
Arkansas.
Mayor Lioneld Jordan called the meeting to order.
Pledge of Allegiance
Mayor's Announcements Proclamations and Recognitions: None
City Council Meeting Presentations, Reports, and Discussion Items:
Annual Comprehensive Financial Report
Announcement of the completion of the audited 2021 annual comprehensive financial report by
Paul Becker.
Paul Becker, Chief Financial Officer: Good evening Mayor and Council. I'm happy to report
that we have completed and published the 2021 annual financial statements of the City. In that
report you'll see it was audited by BKD, we received an unqualified opinion. Also, we had a single
audit done and the single audit talks about grant compliance with Federal Government and we had
no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in regard to internal control. We also have
complied with all the state statutes in regard to state grants that we got last year in 2021. It is
posted on the website, comprehensive annual report and I would refer people who would like to
look at it to the MDNA that's the management report on pages 13 to 25 and that gives you what
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we call the management discussion and analysis and would give the high points. I will be happy
to answer any but I'm required by statute to let you know that the report has been completed, and
it is in fact on file so I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Agenda Additions: None
Consent:
Approval of the July 5, 2022 City Council Meeting Minutes.
Wilson Bauhaus Interiors: A resolution to approve the purchase of equipment and furnishings
for the new police headquarters building from Wilson Bauhaus Interiors and other dealers, as
authorized by Resolution 97-21, in the amount of $965,009.91 plus any applicable taxes and
shipping charges, and to approve a budget adjustment.
Resolution 158-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
On Point Dumpster Rental NWA, LLC: A resolution to approve an agreement with On Point
Dumpster Rental NWA, LLC for the hauling and disposal of solid waste in the City of Fayetteville.
Resolution 159-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
SPO Networks, Inc.: A resolution to approve an agreement with SPO Networks, Inc. for the
hauling and disposal of solid waste in the City of Fayetteville.
Resolution 160-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
Sweetser Construction, Inc.: A resolution to award bid 422-34 and authorize a contract with
Sweetser Construction, Inc. in the amount of $362,283.00 for construction of the Wilson Park Trail
Bridge Replacement and Promenade Improvements, to approve a project contingency in the
amount of $25,000.00, and to approve a budget adjustment.
Resolution 161-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
2022 City Sales and Use Tax Bonds: A resolution to approve a budget adjustment in the total
amount of $75,513,868.00 to appropriate proceeds from the 2022 City Sales and Use Tax Bonds.
Resolution 162-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
Landscape Structures, Inc.: A resolution to authorize the purchase of playground safety
surfacing from Landscape Structures, Inc. for installation at David Lashley and Hotz Parks in the
amount of $101,039.75 pursuant to a Sourcewell Cooperative Purchasing Contract, and to approve
a project contingency in the amount of $10,000.00.
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Resolution 163-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
Arkansas Air and Military Museum, Inc.: A resolution to approve a three-year lease agreement
with the Arkansas Air and Military Museum, Inc. for property located at Drake Field, with options
to renew for additional three-year terms.
Resolution 164-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
Council Member Bunch moved to accept the Consent Agenda as read. Council Member
Harvey seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
Public Hearing:
Mayor Jordan opened the floor for the public hearing.
Public Hearing on the Proposed Ordinance to Change or Establish Water and Sewer Rates:
A resolution to conduct a public hearing on the proposed ordinance to change or establish water
and sewer rates.
Paul Becker, Chief Financial Officer, spoke and introduced Anna White with Black and Veatch.
Anna White, Black and Veatch Representative: When we do a cost of service rate study there's
three steps that we're following. Step one, is the revenue requirements, that's when we're
determining how much revenue, we need to generate from the rates in order to fund the operating
and the capital costs for each of the utilities for water and sewer. The second step is the cost of
service, this is where we're allocating those costs to your customer classes in order to determine
how much revenue, we need to recover from each customer class. The third step is rate design,
once we know how much revenue, we need to recover from each customer class. We designed the
rate schedule and the rate structure in order to recover it appropriately. Tonight, I'm going to focus
on step two, cost of service. There's two manuals that provide the guidelines for doing a cost of
service rate study for water and sewer for the wastewater utility. It's the Water Environment
Federation's manual that shown there on the slide, the second one is for the water utility. It's called
the MI manual, this is the one that really lays out all of the detail and how you do the cost of
service analysis that I'm going to talk about. What's so important about cost of service and why
do we stress that and why are we doing a cost of service rate study. The reason is because different
customer classes within the community inside and outside the city, use the systems. The water and
wastewater systems in different ways, and so the cost of service step is how we recognize that
there's differences in the different customer classes, that you serve. For example, customers that
are located inside the city for water service use all of the components of the water system, the
distribution mains the transmission mains the pumping stations, and the plant all of those where
we purchase water from. Customers that are located outside the city don't necessarily use those
same assets, for instance, the small mains, the distribution mains within the water system. They
don't provide any service to customers outside of the city, so we don't allocate the costs associated
with distribution mains to customers outside the city. So, the way that we make that recognition
that there's differences for this cost of service analysis. The other difference that we draw our
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attention to in this step is your rate structure in what costs are recovered in each of the two
components, so you have a minimum charge, and you have a volume charge. Costs associated with
meter reading, billing collection, customer service, those are recovered through the minimum .
charge. Costs associated with how much water is being treated or pumped that's recovered through
the volume charge. So again we do that cost of service analysis in order to break out those costs to
know what costly to be recovered through what feed. So, the current context for Fayetteville, with
regards to revenue requirements, for the last 11 years across the board increases have been used in
order to increase the revenue in order to fund the revenue requirements. Cost of service, the last
cost of service study was done, 14 years ago, rate design because of the across the board increases
and because of how long it's been since the last cost of service was completed. Your existing rates
do not reflect cost of service. Because of the passage of time what's happened over those 14 years
cuts customer characteristics of change there's been new customers to the system, different
customer classes have grown at different rates, water usage wastewater consumption, the usage
per customer has changed over time. Especially with COVID, there's a lot of changes in your
customer patterns just due to COVID. The cost allocations have changed, so if we look at your
operating costs, maybe the costs associated with the distribution mains within the costs associated
with your transmission mains. That makes a difference again because customer classes use
different parts of the system, your capital costs have changed you're investing in different parts of
the system now than you did 14 years ago and so again your existing rates do not align the cost of
service. So how do we do the analysis? What we're going to focus tonight on is what's called the
return on investment. This is a key component for the cost of service analysis, so the M 1 manual
that I mentioned specifies that if a utility provided service to customers outside of the city limits,
outside of the city boundary, it is entitled to earn a return on those services provided outside of the
city, because those customers outside the city are not considered owners of the utility. The city
and the inside city customers are the owners and are entitled to earn the rate of return on that
investment that's been made in the system to serve customers outside the city. So why is that?
There's three reasons, so first off the city and the inside city customers have an ownership risk.
The city is ultimately responsible for paying all of the costs associated with the system operating
capital making sure that regulatory compliance requirements are being met and they own the risk
if there's any liabilities or penalties. The second one is financial risk, so the city has to invest in
those assets outside the city to serve customers outside the city. But if those customers suddenly
decide that they're going to go buy water from somewhere else or they're going to build their own
treatment plant. Then there's just stranded investment out there that the city invested in put into
place and it's now not generating any revenue. The third is the opportunity risks, those funds that
have been committed for those investments, pose a capital and an opportunity cost for the city, the
city could invest in those funds somewhere else, but they chose to invest them to build those
investments outside the city to serve those customers. The steps that we use in order to calculate
this return on investment, the first one is the rate of return, this is the percentage rate of return. The
MI manual specifically lays out the methodology that we use to calculate the rate of return and it's
using the weighted average cost of capital. I'm going to walk through that in more detail. So once
we know what that percentage rate of return is, then we need to determine the dollar amount of
return and walk you through that. Then the third step once we know what that total dollar amount
of rate of return is allocated between the customers inside the city and outside the city and so we'll
walk through. Okay, so determining the rate of return, so this is the methodology that's laid out in
the manual, is the weighted average cost of capital what we're, taking into account. There is the
total original cost, less depreciation value all of the assets that are currently in service in order to
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provide both water service and wastewater service to all of your customers. So the value of those
assets we look at how much outstanding debt there is associated with those assets and then the
remainder, then of course the equity portion of those assets. So, the City, the utility does not have
any outstanding debt associated with water or wastewater so the value of those assets is 100%
equity. So, when we do our weighted average cost of capital what we're taking is the portion that's
equity and the depth portion multiplying both of those by the interest rate on the debt or what we
would call a fair rate of return on the equity portion and that gives us what our initial rate of return
would be for customers outside the city. So basically, we're just taking into account how much the
City has invested in those assets, where that investment is taking place, whether it's through equity
or death in calculating what the average cost of capital is within at a premium to that amount. So,
the premium is what recognizes that there is a risk associated with providing service to these
customers. What that premium number is can vary. The MI manual does not give any guideline
for what that number is, it can be dictated in a contract like it is here. it can be a number that is just
what the City feels is a reasonable rate of return, to learn from their customers knowing their
customers and what relationship, they have with them. That's a number that's an assumption or
something that needs to be input and again here it's dictated by the contracts that the city has with
the wholesale customers. So the calculation that I have appeared just shows you how we do that
math. I do have an example for water and wastewater. You can see, those are the actual numbers
from the study, so you can see how that math is being calculated. So, once we know what that
percentage rate of return is, and you can see there for water what I'm showing here for water at
7%, for wastewater it's 5.5%. Okay, so we know what that percentage rate of return is for the
outside city customer, so the next step, then is to go to the dollars. So the way that the dollar rate
I return on investment is calculated, we know when we look at the costs for each of the systems, we
have operating costs, and we have capital costs. The operating costs are the operating costs they
are what they are. What we're talking about here is the capital piece. So we take the total costs
related to capital, it's debt services, if there's debt service, which there isn't here. So here it's the
amount of the annual cash investment that the utility is making into the assets. We're talking about
the capital portion here, so when we talk about the capital portion what we're referring the annual
amount that each utility is investing back into the infrastructure or the assets. So the way, then,
that we calculate the dollar amount of return it's that total what we look at it, it's the total amount
of capital investment, less depreciation and what's remaining is the return. So that's a very simple
calculation, that's how its laid out in M1 manual. So that's just how we get that dollar amount of
return. The next step, then, is, we need to allocate that return to inside outside customers. I'm going
to show you a couple examples. Just to show you the math and what I just walked you through so
you can better understand it. So this is for the water utility, and these are the numbers from the rate
study so what's shown on the left there if we're looking at the cash flow. The costs that we have,
we have the operation and maintenance costs about $18 million, debt principle if there was any,
there is not so that is zero, cash financing of CIP, so the water utility is estimated to invest about
$4 million from rate revenue back into the water system and then there's no debt interest, so the
total costs are about $22 million. When we move to what's called the utility basis to recognize that
there's customers outside the city all we're doing is just restating those costs a little bit differently.
So the O&M cost is still O&M, it's still about $18 million, but we put that $4.3 million of
investment back into the system and we divided it into depreciation and return. Depreciation is a
known number that's the annual depreciation on the water assets, so the difference between the
two, the $1.5 million is return. So again it's just a calculation to come up with that dollar return.
I You can see the same information for the wastewater utility. I think the main thing to point out
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here is how much lower the dollar amount of return is for wastewater than it is for water. So for
water is about one and a half million for wastewater $130,000. So much, much smaller and
basically what that's indicating is that the cash investment that's going back into the wastewater
system is pretty much equal to depreciation, whereas on the water side that cash investment was
greater than depreciation. Okay, the next step, then, is to allocate that dollar value back to inside
versus outside city customers. So once we know the value of the assets, this is the original cost
less depreciation value of the assets. We divide that by the units, that's how we come up with the
unit costs that goes into developing the rate schedule. For the unit cost associated with plant
investment for inside city and outside city, we multiply that by the rate of return for each of the
inside and outside customers and that's how we get the dollar amount or inside versus outside. So
when you look at the detailed tables, if you looked at them in the report, you'll notice that we had
returned broken out between inside and outside it was much more heavily allocated to outside city
customers that's because the rate of return for outside city customers is greater than inside city to
again represent that risk associated with providing those services. So then this just shows a little
bit more detail here for water again we have O&M, we have depreciation, and we have returned
and how we've taken that return component and we've now allocated it between inside and outside
city customers. So if you add up now all of the components showing on here it's still equal to what
we originally saw the operating on the capital costs for water. we're just slowly breaking it down
into these pieces, that we need in order to develop the rates. We are entitled to earn a return on the
outside city customers, because it comes out to the greater than the total return. It's a negative
return for inside city. I know that's kind of hard to understand, it really is just how the math works,
but that's also just to recognize that there is a risk associated with the outside city customers and
the inside city customers does not have to pay that risk. Just to summarize, when we talk about
return on investment. The purpose of that is intended to provide a reasonable return for the equity
capital that's used in order to finance those investments, infrastructure to provide water and sewer
service to your customers and to all of your customers. The weighted average cost of capital is the
generally accepted method outlined in the M 1 manual and serves as a guideline that's what's
important here it's a guideline for determining that outside city rate of return. What can impact that
decision on what that outside city rate of return is City policies, existing contracts that we've
recognized, impacts on customers. When I made my presentation to you a couple of weeks ago
one of the things that I talked about with some of the things that we take into consideration when
we go into rate design. Impact on the customers, the rate structure is easy to understand. We're
talking about the rate of return what it is and how its applied to the customers what's outlined in
the MI manual are guidelines that we can follow to get us to a starting point for what those numbers
are. They can always be adjusted. So, then, I just want to conclude with the two rate structure
tables, these have not changed from the record that we issued or what I showed you when I
presented to you a couple of weeks ago. These are the proposed rate schedules, this is for water,
the next slide is for wastewater. These are based on the cost of service analysis that I just walked
through. Again, we were hired to perform the cost of service analysis and that's what we did,
following the methodology and M1 manual the results of that calculation is what's represented
here in the rates there's always adjustments that can be made.
Council Member Turk: I have one question. So, the rate study that was done 14 years ago was
the same methodology used that you use in this rate study?
Anna White: Yes.
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The City Council received 2 public comments regarding this resolution.
Mayor Jordan: At the end of the Public Hearing the Council needs to pass a resolution that states
that we had a public hearing. Is that correct Kit?
Kit Williams, City Attorney: Yes mayor, I would like to do that. We needed to have something
in order to have a public hearing according to the Granicus systems. So I wrote the resolutions
saying you have had a public hearing, we have listened to everyone who wanted to talk. So now
we are going to be moving on to the ordinance after we pass this resolution. This is only a
resolution saying that we have had the public hearing. It is not deciding any rates or anything like
that.
Council Member Bunch moved to approve the resolution and close the Public Hearing.
Council Member Turk seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
Resolution 165-22 as recorded in the office of the City Clerk
Unfinished Business:
An Ordinance to Amend §51.136 Monthly Water Rates and §51.137 Monthly Sewer Rates
to Change Water and Sewer Rates: An ordinance to amend §51.136 Monthly Water Rates and
§51.137 Monthly Sewer Rates to change water and sewer rates as recommended by the cost of
service study conducted by Black & Veatch.
Council Member Harvey 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.
Paul Becker, Chief Financial Officer: Well, we would like to recommend this be tabled. We've
heard some comments, one of the things for the City of Farmington is that study was done pursuant
to a contract that was in effect that at the time that we began the study. That contract has currently
expired, so we have to negotiate a new contract, so we would like to table the study. We would
like to have time to meet with Farmington. Also, look at the entire rate study and come back to the
Council, we like to table that until the first meeting in December, that will give us sufficient time,
to try to negotiate an agreement. Which, I think we can successfully do at that time and look at
some of the other issues that we've heard, so that's staff recommendation.
Mayor Jordan: I want to thank everyone who shared comments during the public hearing on this
item and several people also have emailed comments and I want to thank all of you that emailed
us comments, and it became clear to me that we had more work to do on this. Our water and sewer
committee recommended tabling Is that correct?
1 Council Member Turk: It is mayor.
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Mayor Jordan: So, I'm asking the Council also to table beside him tonight to allow us more time
to make changes. We're going to take our time and we're going to work this thing out.
Council Member Scroggin: I'm perfectly fine tabling this after public comment. I've got a lot of
emails on this and some of the emails don't really make sense. I teach math at the University and
we're talking about increasing certain things by percentage. Which to the wholesale customers is
a percentage of their total cost and for the total cost to go more than our percent increase that
doesn't make sense. So either I'm misunderstanding it, or some other people are misunderstanding
and I think it's important that everybody involved actually knows what it's going to do to their own
residents. So that makes sense and then obviously we need a contract in Farmington before we
come back again. As a mathematician there's definitely been some stuff that's been emailed me
doesn't make sense, and I hope that we can we can fix it.
Council Member Kinion, spoke and asked a procedural question.
Kit Williams, City Attorney spoke and provided a detailed procedural explanation regarding the
motion to table. He went on to explain how the rate study will need to be heard by the other city's
council before it comes back for a vote by the Fayetteville City Council Members.
Council Member Kinion moved to table the item until the December 6, 2022 City Council
meeting. Council Member Scroggin seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed
unanimously.
This ordinance was Tabled until the December 6, 2022 City Council Meeting.
RZN-2022-021 (S. Happy Hollow Road/Black Pine Construction and Development): An
ordinance to rezone that property described in rezoning petition RZN 22-021 located at 248 South
Happy Hollow Road in Ward l for approximately 3.1 acres from RSF-4, Residential Single
Family, 4 Units per acre to NC, Neighborhood Conservation.
Council Member Scroggin moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.
Council Member Turk seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Jonathan Curth, Development Services Director, spoke and explained that he, did not have any
new information to present. He went on to explain and summarize the significant amount of public
comment received regarding this item.
Robert Rhoads, Representative of Applicant, I'm representing the petitioner here, as you all
probably remember I gave a full-blown presentation a month ago, and then a little tiny
presentation, two weeks ago, and this one will even be tinier. Okay, so just highlight some things.
This property and this petition originally started with RI-U, but got neither staff support or
Planning Commission's support. He heard them and changed it and that's why you have
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Neighborhood Conservation in front of you, and that is now both supported as you heard from
staff and from the Planning Commission. I think there was some concern about density and I think
anyone looking at this property can tell you that, even though, with this rezoning, technically, you
could put 31 lots. There's absolutely no way no how anyone's going to put 31 lots on this, as I
mentioned in the last two meetings we believe 16 to 20 is probably what it will hit. This is
compatible, this is compatible with the property around it currently and it is compatible with the
future plans of the City. Again, some of the comments that that you heard one of the ones that
resonate with me is that we need more homes, and this is an ideal spot to put some more homes.
There are questions about speed bumps I think, and two agenda sessions ago and I was surprised
when I drove out there and there's five. I mean, as you heard there's five traffic calming devices. I
don't mean just one bump, but I mean five different places on that stretch of road, so there are
things being done, obviously, to make this safe, and I would agree with staff that this is not going
to enhance the dangers of that in that regard. I like the one positive comment email that was sent
probably a month ago and, in a nutshell, that said hey we need homes, and this is close to school
with public transportation, sidewalks and it's a good spot. So with that all said, I would ask you to
pass this rezoning and I stand ready, willing and able to answer any questions, thank you.
There was a brief discussion regarding questions received from a member of the public. The
member of the public wanted to know why she could not see the site plan and why it had not been
reviewed yet. It was explained that the Supreme Court does not allow the City Council to consider
a site plan at this point. It was explained to the citizen that if this property is rezoned and the
applicant decided to go further and want to build housing then the applicant would have to submit
a large-scale development plan or a preliminary plat. Once submitted it would then be forwarded
to the Planning Commission for a decision.
The City Council received 4 public comments regarding this ordinance.
Council Member Hertzberg: I have a question for Jonathan. Will this proposed rezone allow
multi -family, or will it remain single-family?
Jonathan Curth: It remains single-family by right.
Council Member Scroggin, spoke about the Happy Hollow area, speed cushions, and the
development up the hill from this area. He went on to discuss the increase in the amount of rain
that the City of Fayetteville has received on two different occasions. He concluded his comments
by explaining that this would stay single-family homes even if the decision is to rezone to NC. He
went on to pose a question for Jonathan Curth. Council Member Scroggin wanted to know more
about NC, Neighborhood Conservation when it came to density numbers.
Jonathan Curth, spoke and explained that he would look into that question.
Council Member Scroggin, spoke and explained that 16 to 22 units made more sense to him.
Council Member Wiederkehr: I agree with Council Member Scroggin. When cities grow
organically, they frequently find infrastructure like this street, that is too narrow for the volume
I that it entails. I know we've got theories that narrow streets make safe drivers and that may
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generally true, but I think the volume on this piece of infrastructure causes me to have caution.
While I think the property in question could certainly afford greater than RSF-4, the concerns that
I hear cause me concern about NC density by right. I know the developer has indicated a desire
for a certain level but I'm very cautious going that direction. I am not anticipating it being widen
and addressed anytime in the near future. I want to be sure to express that it's not necessarily the
drainage, which is going to become more of an issue, but is actually the traffic issue that causes
me the greatest concern.
Council Member Turk: I too share some concerns about the compatibility of the area. Some of
the drainage concerns that have been highlighted tonight, and in that area, and then I just want a
clarification from Jonathan. So, if this is rezoned to NC the developer could go and request a
conditional use permit and actually build three and four family dwellings on that on that property.
Is that correct?
Jonathan Curth: That's correct, we'd have to go back to the Planning Commission and submit
detailed plans and elevations similar to what I think some of the residents are asking for.
Council Member Turk: But under RSF-4 currently they would not be allowed, they could only
have a family dwelling is that correct?
Jonathan Curth: By conditional use.
Council Member Turk: Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. There is a possibility that there could
be cluster housing and there could be multifamily housing if a conditional use permit was
approved?
Jonathan Curth: That's correct.
Council Member Turk: I've been over there several times kind of driving around, I guess,
contributing to the traffic and there is a lot of cut through traffic there. There just is. That's just the
way it's kind of setup because people want to get from 265 quicker over to Highway 16 and that's
what I'm saying. So, I have some serious concerns about up zoning this more than what it is right
now, and they are allowed to build 12 units, right now, as it is, thank you.
Council Member Kinion: I have the similar concerns on the traffic going and looking at that.
That road needs improvement, anyway, but with the current zoning still offering up to 12 units by
conditional use, right?
Jonathan Curth: By right?
Council Member Kinion: I mean by condition.
Jonathan Curth: The current RSF-4 or zoning district would allow.
Council Member Kinion: So that's pretty good density for this lot, it seems to me. So it's hard for
me to see that someone would possibly get it more crowded than that and if there's one thing I've
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learned from my years of being on City Council we're presented with these ideas and ideals, but
what you have to consider is what is the worst possible situation that could happen to this
neighborhood with a rezoning and I know that's not maybe the fatalistic approach that a lot of
people want to see but I've seen us be tricked so many times. People come in and they say oh we're
going to do this and that's nice it's feasible, that they would do that there, but then in the end that's
not what is there because the zoning goes with the property and if that person sells the property or
has a change of heart they get to utilize the zoning that we have approved and currently in this
property I can't support an up zoning. I understand the arguments for it, and we do need housing,
we do need density, but this is not the area, this is not the lots that we need to have higher density
until we have a better situation with the cut through there on Happy Hollow to make sure that is
safe so that's currently how I see it, so anyway thanks.
Council Member Harvey: I just want to thank the neighbors for coming out and voicing your
concerns and your emails we received all of that. We were asked to hold it for that reason. That's
what these extra readings are about. So thank you for making time to come out and for being
available on zoom. I do agree, I feel like the infrastructures not quite matching with the street, and
so you know I'm wanting to maybe slow it down just a little bit. Keep it to the zoning it is, and in
fact there is a lot more dwellings. You're just right next door but then the neighborhood begins at
the end of that street so you know it's okay that there's single-family spaces and then right next to
that there's already some very dense spaces so I'm feeling like I'm wanting to keep that lower
density and allow some time for the infrastructure to build there. It sounds like we're going to get
sidewalk soon, that's good. If we need to find some other solutions for traffic, we need to do that
as well. Mr. Drake, I saw his video, I don't know if you all got to see his video on flooding, but it
was like a mudslide. It was very, very bad, they said from the email that it happens every single
time it rains so there's quite a bit of work that needs to be done in the area before we kind of make
the situation worse so I probably will not be supporting the rezone.
Council Member Bunch: Jonathan I have a question about our list of streets that are getting
improvements. Where is Happy Hollow in the grand scheme of having these extensions, the
sidewalks and maybe better gutters or something like that?
Jonathan Curth: I do, and Chris Brown the Public Works Director is also on. It was recently
overlaid with fresh asphalt, which is part of the traffic calming conversation, because there was a
lot of concern from residents that the asphalt level may have gone up to the point where the existing
speed tables are less effective because of that vertical differences less. So a piece of that
conversation was the recent resurfacing of the street and to Council Member Harvey's point, there
is a need sidewalk on the work program for later this year but it's possible that it will be built in
the beginning of 2023. That's intended to connect the sidewalks that are closer to fourth and fifth
street with Mount Sequoyah Woods, to the north.
Council Member Bunch: I don't necessarily like the speed cushions, but that's something we're
using a lot, but I do like the process we go through now to get those. It is 70% of the neighbors
have to agree to put the speed cushions in. I think that's more collaborative than what we've had in
the past, but as far as traffic calming some of the things that we try to use around the city meet
with great resistance and you know lots of people don't like roundabouts they don't like curves in
the street, they don't like narrowing points in the street, they don't like the planters. We're kind of
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trying to feel our way through what will be the best calming methods for the streets. Now lots of
people have mentioned cut through and I'm not necessarily in favor of this rezoning but if we don't
rezone this, how does that help the cut through traffic? I don't really see that that changes it at all
honestly I'd love to hear from D'Andre because he's also the other ward member from that that
part of town and i know we tabled this to allow the citizens to get together. I remember asking if
two weeks was long enough for them to do that, so I want to make sure that we did try to give
everybody time to get together. I'd love to hear what the other Council Member from that ward
has to say about this.
D'Andre Jones: Thank you so much, and the concerns that each Council Member has voiced are
legitimate and I was thinking about it from a perspective of needing more houses but after receiving
the information from many citizens, I guess I'm leaning more toward that this is the right time
because, again, as you all have stated that there is some work to be done as it relates to the citizens
who needed the extra time. I believe that they were able to get together and talk and discuss.
Council Member Hertzberg, spoke and explained that she felt there were other traffic calming
measures that could be implemented. She stated she felt inclined to support this item. She went
on to ask a clarifying question to Jonathan Curth. She asked him to clarify what happens in the
development stage when it comes to drainage.
Jonathan Curth: That's correct one of the tenants of the city's drainage criteria manual is that the
post or the predevelopment drainage patterns do not worsen after post development. In some
instances where there is a known issue sometimes the city, as you all know, can work with residents
to try to resolve something that's off site that may not be the result of a development.
Council Member Hertzberg: Thank you so much, I think that that would be the way that I would
like to go.
Council Member Jones: Isn't there a Lindsay Apartment housing close in that area?
Jonathan Curth: Yes, the Cliffs Apartments which is several hundred housing units is, I believe,
still owned by Lindsay apartment to the north.
Council Member Jones, spoke and wanted to know how the issues that had been discussed are
affecting the individuals who lived at the Cliffs Apartments.
Council Member Kinion: Well, if you're using it as a cut through, then you would turn on it and
drive through the Cliffs to get back over to a Crossover so inevitably, has an impact.
Jonathan Curth: A merit to that point, there was a discussion that predates my time with the city
of making this a much more robust network of streets through this area for which Lindsay, I
believe, cost shared work on Cliffs Boulevard to make it a sizable street that it is to accommodate
much larger volumes of traffic that are currently going to the property. So as far as traffic impacts
go Cliffs definitely has the capacity for it if that's your major concern Council Member Jones.
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Council Member Jones, spoke and shared his concerns about accessibility when it comes to
residents using the sidewalks and bus service. He went on to say that he was inclined to support
it.
Mayor Jordan asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the vote was 5-4. Council
Member Hertzberg, Jones, Scroggin, and Bunch voted yes. Council Member Harvey, Kinion,
Wiederkehr, and Turk voted no. Mayor Jordan broke the tie and voted yes.
Ordinance 6583 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk
RZN 22-022 (3061 East Skillern Rd./Bearden): An ordinance to rezone that property described
in rezoning petition RZN 22-022 located at 3061 East Skillern Road in Ward 3 for approximately
2.99 acres from R-A, Residential -Agricultural to RSF-4, Residential Single Family, 4 units per
acre.
Council Member Hertzberg moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading.
Council Member Harvey seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed
unanimously.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Jonathan Curth, Development Services Director Very similar to the last item, I don't have any
updates to their request. Also, similar to the last item we have received some additional public
comments, since the last hearing I believe a little ways before the meeting you received some
correspondence from the, I think it was the Brookbury Subdivision, that was petitioning the
applicant to consider offering a bill of assurance that would limit the number of units on the
property, it is worth noting. I think, Mr. Williams, may have shared at the previous meeting and if
he didn't you've heard it before, we cannot require a bill of assurance from the applicant, but it can
be offered if it is in their interest as of immediately before this meeting we had not seen that. From
staff and the Planning Commission's perspective, I did want to remind you all that we felt that the
request to rezone the property from its agricultural zoning to RSF-4 is compatible with the
exclusively single-family character there and the almost uniformly RSF-4 zoning of the area.
Accordingly, staff is recommending approval and as a reminder again the Planning Commission
to forward it to Council by a vote of seven to zero.
Daniel Bearden, Applicant, spoke and explained why his family is seeking to rezone this property
to RSF-4. He stated that his family had been drawn to this property due to the extra acreage that
was attached to it in the middle of the city. He went on to explain that he and his family did not
have any plans other than to build a single-family home on this property.
The City Council received I public comment regarding this ordinance.
Council Member Hertzberg: i would like to start by thanking the applicant for being so
transparent with us and letting us know exactly what he was planning to do, even though he didn't
have to. I think that RSF-4 is completely appropriate. All of the surrounding areas are RSF-4, I
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don't think it's fair to ask the applicant to limit the density, even though the density in the
surrounding areas is exactly the same, and they aren't required to be limited. So I'm in favor of
this request and I hope that you all will be as well, thank you.
Council Member Turk: You know I always like to give people an opportunity to work it out. So,
I don't know if there's a really big downside of holding it for two weeks, and if they can't work it
out, then we can move forward with our vote at that time, but that's what I would recommend here
tonight.
Council Member Harvey, spoke and agreed with Council Member Turk.
Council Member Jones, spoke and agree with Council Member Harvey in the hopes that the
property owner and neighbors could work out an agreement.
Council Member Wiederkehr, spoke and agreed that he would support tabling the item. He went
on to suggest that the applicant might need to consider applying for a tandem lot.
Council Member Scroggin, spoke and stated that he was ok with holding this item.
Jonathan Curth, spoke and explained that creating a tandem lot in this location was not an option.
This ordinance was left on the Second Reading.
VAC 22-015 (2584 N. Candlewood Dr./Harbaugh): An ordinance to approve VAC 22-015 for
property located at 2584 North Candlewood Drive in Ward 3 to vacate a portion of a drainage
easement.
Council Member Bunch moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council
Member Harvey seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
Jonathan Curth, Again staff s recommendation is a conditional approval of this request. One
piece of that is that if they damage any utilities in moving the drainage line it's at their expense.
The second piece is that the drainage line that they need to abandon, and move is approved, prior
to the easement or the vacation being finalized.
Robert Rhoads, Applicant Representative: Actually, I'm representing the applicant and the
former owner of this property, the former owner is the Harbaugh's and to give you a little a little
background. They bought this house about 20 years ago and unbeknownst to them their driveway
and part of the retaining wall was built on this easement. They didn't know about it until I went to
sell it the Timberlakes, who I also represent. So we agree to all the conditions that the city has
imposed on us as far as what we need to do, and really the only issue we had was with our neighbor
and there's only one neighbor involved, because the easement is in between the two pieces of
property. We are requesting a temporary construction easement from said neighbor. We chatted
and they said they didn't really want to give us the construction easement and that's fine because,
according to Mr. Henley, we can do the work on it. It might be a little bit slower and might take a
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little more money, but we can do it within the easement that we currently have. I have a text
message from the neighbor's lawyer, and that is John Elrod. He said I could read this to confirm
our conversation my clients will not give the easement. They will not object proceedings before
the City Council or reserve all rights if the trees are damaged or die because of the works being
done. You know I think we literally had four or five of the things that we agreed to such as repairing
the side or the grass if it's just grass and it's not side leveling things of that nature. A lot of those
things are already in our plans, and you know we're going to be good responsible citizens. The
Timberlakes would like to get this project started and done so they can enjoy their house and then
of course the neighbor would like to make sure that we do it properly and we've got one of the best
engineers and we've got a contractor that is also an engineer by nature, and so we should get it
done effectively. If we know the city will hold us responsible and we'll do it right. I think we'll do
it right in the first time, I would ask you to approve this partial vacation.
Council Member Harvey moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.
Council Member Turk 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 6584 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk
New Business:
RZN 22-024 (502 S. College Ave./Davis): An ordinance to rezone that property described in
rezoning petition RZN 22-024 located at 502 South College Avenue in Ward 1 for approximately
0.28 acres from NC, Neighborhood Conservation to RI-U, Residential Intermediate Urban.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Jonathan Curth, Development Services Director, spoke and explained that the request was to
rezone the property from NC, Neighborhood Conservation to RI-U, Residential Intermediate
Urban. The property currently has one home located on it. The Development Services staff
reviewed the request. They assessed the property for land use compatibility and found that the
request was compatible with the surrounding area. Staff also reviewed the request in order to
compare it to the city's long-range planning goals. Staff found that the rezone was also compatible
with the long-range planning goals due to the type of services and bus access the property has.
Ashley Davis, Applicant: I do not have anything to add to what Jonathan said. I will be happy to
answer any question that you have.
Council Member Harvey: I haven't heard anything. We do have RI-U right next door. It is a
very dense area. I am inclined to support it. I would love to hear from Council Member Jones.
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Council Member Jones, spoke and explained that he had not heard from anyone.
Council Member Harvey moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council
Member Hertzberg seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Council Member Harvey moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.
Council Member Hertzberg 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 6585 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk
RZN 22-026 (2015 S. Vale Ave./Titan Vale, LLC.): An ordinance to rezone that property
described in rezoning petition RZN 22-026 located at 2015 South Vale Avenue in Ward 1 for
approximately 3.50 acres from NS-G, Neighborhood Services -General to CS, Community
Services.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Jonathan Curth, Development Services Director, spoke and provided a description of the
property and the surrounding area. Mr. Curth went on to explain that this property had been seen
by Council before. Earlier this year the applicant requested to vacate a piece of right -a -way that
bisected the property and the request was denied by Council. Mr. Curth explained that since the
previous item was denied the applicant has now requested to rezone the property back to CS,
Community Services. City staff and Planning Commission supported the new rezone request.
Will Kelster, Applicant Representative: Well, I was going to get up here and tell you all the long -
jaded history of this project, but Jonathan's already done a pretty good job of that. I am happy to
answer any questions you have.
Mayor Jordan, spoke and asked Jonathan to clarify the request. Mayor Jordan wanted to ensure
that he understood the rezoning request and asked if the property had been zoned CS previously.
Jonathan Curth: That is correct.
Mayor Jordan: So we changed it and now we are going back to the original?
Jonathan Curth: That is the request.
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Council Member Scroggin moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading. Council
Member Harvey seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Council Member Harvey moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.
Council Member Scroggin 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 6586 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk
RZN 22-025 (507 S. Church Ave.): An ordinance to rezone that property described in rezoning
petition RZN 22-025 located at 507 South Church Avenue in Ward 1 for approximately 0.17 acres
from NC, Neighborhood Conservation to RI-U, Residential Intermediate -Urban.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Jonathan Curth, Development Compliance Director: I actually received a request from the
applicant yesterday, that this item be tabled to the 8/16/22 Council meeting. I am prepared to
present on it if the Council is interested. The applicant is not available, and they did understand
that, they did not want to start the reading process until there was a full hearing. I believe some of
you all may have received some public comment very shortly before the meeting about a nearby
property owner who wanted to coordinate with the applicant. I don't know if that is the applicant's
reason for requesting the tabling but there might be some nice serendipity there.
Council Member Harvey: I concur with the tabling if that is what they want to do.
Council Member Hertzberg moved to suspend the rules and go to table this ordinance until
the 8/16/22 City Council meeting. Council Member Bunch seconded the motion. Upon roll
call the motion passed unanimously.
This item was tabled until the August 16, 2022 City Council meeting.
Amend §92.04 Sale of Diseased Animals; Kennel and Pet Shop Regulation: An ordinance to
amend § 92.04 Sale of Diseased Animals; Kennel and Pet Shop Regulation to prohibit the retail
sale of dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens unless obtained from and in cooperation with the
Fayetteville Animal Shelter or another animal rescue organization, and to declare an emergency.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
I
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Kit Williams, City Attorney: Mayor, this afternoon after some consultation and comments from
the public and others, I just thought that subsection C should be somewhat expanded to make sure
that the other shelters, could be accessing our pet stores but I wanted that with the okay, and
cooperation of the Fayetteville Animal Shelter. I wanted them to be able to approve that to make
sure that whatever other shelter might want to use the pet stores, it would be approved by
Fayetteville Animal Services. I also thought that the volunteer animal rescue organizations should
also be approved by Fayetteville Animal Services. They have a lot of experience in this and they
know which is a real animal rescue groups, I think there are a lot of them in there, my wife does
one herself. I rewrote this a little bit added a little bit to it, and I would hope there will be
amendment to it, let me read you what I'm proposing subsection C should say. It shall be unlawful
for a pet shop to offer for sale or to display any dog cat puppy or kitten unless obtained from and
cooperation with the Fayetteville Animal Shelter, a government or nonprofit animal shelter
approved by the Fayetteville Animal Services or nonprofit animal rescue organization or approved
by Fayetteville Animal Services. So that is a sentence that would have been changed to the first
sentence. I would recommend that. To you, the City Council at this point in time to make this a
little bit more clear and make sure that Fayetteville Animal Services can use their expertise and
make sure it is the right kind of group that we are going to be helping by allowing them to display
their animals.
Mayor Jordan: Let me ask the two sponsors of the ordinance, do you have a concern about
amending to that?
Council Member Bunch: I don't. I do agree with the city attorney on this, I appreciate the
clarification because I did get the emails and I thought well that's a good point there we don't have
this outlined. I think our animal shelter already works with quite a few rescue groups and possibly
other animal shelters in the area. I'm looking at Justine sitting there and she's nodding, so. I think
they're more qualified to know who the best shelters and you know that sort of thing would be. We
also have a county shelter, this was something that was brought up and I'm pretty sure Fayetteville
Animal Shelter already works with Washington County and she's nodding again so she'll come up
and outline this little bit more to, I think. But I feel comfortable with these changes.
Council Member Hertzberg: Yes, I agree with Kit and Sarah. I think this would make this a little
more flexible but also offer the same protection with Animal Services involved. I am in favor of
this amendment.
Council Member Hertzberg moved to amend to expand the ordinance to include Section C.
Council Member Bunch seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
Justine Lentz, Animal Services Superintendent: I wanted to give you a little bit of background on
how this came about. I would say late 2019 early 2020 right when things were getting real fun with
the pandemic, our Animal Services Advisory Board, which is one of the city's boards that is made
up of citizen numbers, as well as representative Bunch who is our Council representative. There
had been a business that had opened up and Rogers at had gotten a lot of negative public feedback
because of their business practice of selling at commercial retail pet sales of puppies and they
wanted to look at our current ordinance see what we could do to improve that. Fayetteville's overall
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mission to be a very humane community, we have a very pet loving community and we wanted to
further that interest, so we the members researched, discussed and voted in favor of animal services
staff, bringing forward a change to the current pet sales ordinance to not allow commercial pet
sales of dogs and cats and I wanted to give a little bit of clarification to you because we have had
a lot of comments back and forth today that I've seen and I'm sure that you've seen as well. This
in no way would affect anybody who is wanting to have a small-scale breeding operation, if you
have a couple of dogs that you want to breed and you're wanting to sell them privately, you know
personally that's fine. This is just addressing the sale of dogs and cats in a retail outlet. Also
previously mentioned both Pet Smart and Petco, which are our two biggest current pet supply
stores that have been here for years, both have corporate mandates against the sale of dogs and
cats. So when you go in those stores, the pets that you're seeing there are being sourced from either
local municipal shelters, 501 C3, or animal rescue organizations. So, when you see those
sometimes people get confused about what that is. Also something I've seen kind of thrown around
a little bit too it's just the idea that if a store was wanting to sell puppies it doesn't mean that they
can't still operate a pet supply business, so of course we welcome pet supply businesses in
Fayetteville and the competition that they bring and but what we're really targeting here is the fact
that the sourcing of these puppies that come into these retail outlets are coming from puppy mills
and puppy mills are place that no one ever really wants to be. They are commercial dog breeding
facilities in which the health of the dogs is disregarded in order to maintain a low overhead and
maximize profits. There's very little oversight, the conditions are deplorable, a lot of these dogs
that I have personally seen and others in our community that do rescue work and if you've ever
dealt with a dog that has come from a puppy mill and I'm talking about the ones that don't make
1 it to the pet store. The ones that are left there in cages where they never see grass they don't get
touched by humans, they don't go outside and they never received that care they never received
any kind of grooming services it's a pretty horrific place and I think it's really hard for the average
customer to associate that sometimes with what they see in a bright lit store that's you know happy
with I'm sure very welcoming customer service people don't understand what they're helping to
continue to propagate and that was kind of the purpose behind this ordinance. You know
Fayetteville, we are very lucky to live in a community that is so support it with our animal services.
Even in the Northwest Arkansas Region, I feel like our animal services division receives more
support than any other, you know local community and that we're so appreciative of that. Currently
I have more dogs in my facility than I've had and probably the last three years. We're definitely
seeing a lot of people and a lot of tough places that are needing to place their pets, we definitely
do not have a lack of adoptable pets in our community, and certainly in the Northwest Arkansas
Region, and this is not just an issue that Fayetteville is facing. I work closely with other local
shelters, particularly Springdale and their directors been in the same place for a long time. They're
just inundated with people that either put off having their pet spayed during the pandemic or
financially or just really struggling. So there's definitely not a lack of adoptable pets and we want
to make those a priority, because those you know they didn't ask to be here, but they're here and
we want to give them the best shot that we can at finding a loving home. We have a vet on staff,
of course, to ensure that our puppies that are put up for adoption are healthy. So, in summary that's
what this ordinance is for. We just really are wanting to target this. We can't regulate what happens
outside the city limits, but we can take a stand on the product that is here, and that is something
that we don't want to see that these puppies coming in from puppy mills and being sold. In addition,
you know a lot of places that sell these puppies, they sell for a lot of money, like thousands of
I dollars. A lot of people don't have thousands of dollars to initially spend on a pet so they offer
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financing through private entity and a lot of times those interest rates are 30% and up, and then if
you default it's even more penalties. i am in communications with directors, from both the Humane
Society of the United States and Best Friends Animal Society. That was something that came up
in these places, opening in college towns, particularly like. We have a lot of people that maybe
don't have the financial know how or the savvy to understand when they might be taken advantage
of. They're not reading the fine print because it's a very emotional thing. That's what we're trying
to prevent with this ordinance moving forward. I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody
has.
Council Member Bunch: I don't have any questions I'm pretty clear on everything.
Council Member Scroggin: I don't have any questions. I just want to thank you all for bringing
this forward.
Council Member Bunch: Well just very briefly, i would say that I've been on the Animal
Services Advisory Board for a while and I am glad Justine pointed out that we started talking about
this, and when the store first opened in Rogers so that was 2019 or 2020 and we had the pandemic,
you know this kind of got put on the back burner, a little bit, but it is something we had talked
about multiple times over the past several years and started the process of actually writing it and
just you know it just kind of there always seem to be a big agenda and everything going on and
it's asked well let's wait a little while and now is the time to do it, I think, thank you.
Council Member Hertzberg: I just want to add kind of how I got involved in this, I had
approached Kit and Justine to work on our pet care ordinance to improve our requirements for
shelter for outdoors because we've gotten some public comments from concerned residents about
care of animals, and so I was meeting with them and they mentioned that Sarah had brought up
this ordinance, and so I asked to be a part of it, and she graciously allowed me to co-sponsor this
and so that's how I got involved in, I am very much in support of this, so thank you.
Council Member Bunch: That's actually the other way around, because I did not bring this
forward, it was I forgot who that started it on the Animal Services Advisory Board but Holly is the
one that really took it to the front burner this past couple of weeks so and I think Justine was
probably the one that brought it to our attention, thank you.
The City Council received 7 public comments regarding this ordinance.
During public comment the owners of Petland came to the mic and engaged in a question and
answer session with the City Council Members.
Kit Williams, City Attorney: This is not the first time, the City Council considered restricting or
prohibiting of the sale of dogs and cats in the city, we have a specific code of provision in our
animal chapter, it says you can't sell animals off parking lots. We used to have a lot of that going
around, and it was to do the same thing that I think the Animal Services Committee wanted to do
here is to protect the animals from being really sold or even given away to someone that might not
know how to handle the animal or care for the animal and we felt like that was just the City Council
felt like that was just the wrong thing to do, and so they prohibited that. We never talk about any
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pet store that this might affect we talk about some pet stores that don't do this, that sell pet supplies
and live on that, rather than trying to sell individual animals but this is directed totally at trying to
slow down as much as possible the mass production of puppies and kittens that we see in this
country. They were being produced under conditions most of us don't think is probably the best
thing to do. We're not trying to shut any business down; they can do anything except selling puppy
mill dogs and cats. What we're not trying to, I want to make sure that that the Chamber of
Commerce realize we're not really, directing this in any store we want all the stores all the pet
stores in Fayetteville to operate under the same conditions where they're not helping and
facilitating the mass production of cats and dogs sometimes called puppy mills and we just feel
like or, this is at least directed toward trying to prevent that and rather than any other business
might be coming in. So, I just want to say we've already made efforts years ago to prevent that
kind of activity on parking lots and now it is being potentially extended to a pet store.
Council Member Bunch: I have a question and possibly for kind of a combination of the City
Attorney and Justine Lentz. In crafting this change to our ordinance, where did you find that Pets
Smart and Petco do not sell animals, puppies and kittens that they only take them from shelters
and rescues and that sort of thing, but where are other cities that have ordinances similar to this
because I know we mentioned a few when we first started talking about this? I'm kind of
wondering where are some other places that that might have an ordinance like and in those cities
feel that they are not promoting business by not allowing the store to sell purebred dogs, I don't
think we're unique in this and alone Ellen Island on this.
Justine Lentz: When we were doing our research and we reached out to the Best Friends Animal
Society they gave us some information, there are 26 other states that have enacted very similar
retail pet store bans and over 350 cities and no one has ever filed a suit in a community for passing
such an ordinance, didn't displace any currently open businesses. Further only a handful of suits
has been filed in communities that already had retail pet stores and none of those have been
successful so it's definitely, I mean, yes, the first in Arkansas but we're certainly not the first in
country.
Council Member Turk: I have a question for the owners, if you could come back up here. So,
Mr. Clark mentioned that you all were franchise, is that right? So the rules that govern Petland
your franchise, do they prohibit you from taking dogs or cats or kittens or puppies from an animal
shelter? Is that a prohibition within the contract with Petland?
Petland Owners: No, it does not.
Council Member Turk: Okay, so for your three stores, could change that practice if you desire
to?
Petland Owners: We would have to change our class, it's not our business model and for the cross
contamination of puppies i just would feel like it would be, you could ask Justine, because when
you intake a pet not knowing where it came from the quarantine process that has to happen is pretty
intense, because just like a human, we can harbor something viral for 14 days that's why the State's ,
regulation on warranty was 10 days, but we go above and beyond that to be 14 days, which is
really, that is, the ethical thing to do for the consumer, and so you know if you quarantine every
1
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intake puppy to bring that in basically I just feel like there is a way that we can work with just
being in the local shelters, it could be a new business model, I will tell you ASPCA is opening up
in talks with major retailers to change up the business model because things are different now
people understand that these animals are their family members, they are not just the cow sitting in
the field, which you know every animal has its place, but not in my heart. The animal has a right
to go to a loving home at a young age, and we care about that. One thing we could also help Justine
with is, you know we're open quite a bit more than shelters if somebody has an emergency or
somebody needs to intake; we could have a designated spot, maybe. We could take something in
to help her, you know in designated area, I do have a separate room. But you know couldn't be on
a permanent basis, they will have to come get it on that, following Monday, but there's so many
options that we can do to help each other. I could help them; we have such strict protocols and
everything that we could learn from her and she can learn from us.
Council Member Turk: Have you all had conversations like that yet?
Petland Owners: So. I have reached out and I actually have it on video, I have to find it sorry we
just learned about this literally today. I have not had much opportunity to prepare, but I have
actually recorded myself calling local shelters, to try to partner with them to sponsor vaccinations
to I've actually reached out to local vets to say, hey can we educate, these people will be honest
with you the vets do not have time to do it, even if I paid them to do it. There's just not enough
hours in the day to take care of the animals. The way that they need to be taken care of and you
know that's why I'm telling you there's so much more that can be done.
Council Member Turk: Okay, thank you.
Petland Owners: I just want to ask that we table this so that way we can get a chance to prepare.
Council Member Bunch: I have a question here for Samantha you mentioned quarantining
puppies if they came from a shelter but do you quarantine the puppies that you get?
Petland Owners: That is a great question. We know exactly where they came from, I can see
exactly that puppy's vaccination record, we have a very strict protocol on the worming on all of
our prophylactic care and we do a bordetella, which is kind of like the flu shot for humans, puppies
get the same thing, and it should help give them that extra boost immunity because if you think
about a puppy you know they basically work on mom's immunity, for the first 16 weeks so,
although we do give them their vaccinations, that's just such a strong component and how they're
going to respond to the external whatever they're exposed to, but at the end of the day, I can see
that, so what we do is once we take them in we do a five day deworming. Basically, what we do
is monitor their weight, we monitor their food, we monitor their water. We hope to have you and
if you guys came in, so I can show you everything that we do. Show you we also take them to the
vet, which we don't have to do that but we do that, because what we need to do is see if they have
any issues, so say they have weak knees or an open fontanel. There's so much that we can tell
whether a breeder wants to hide it or not, the puppy's health speaks for itself, and we can tell, by
having a vet to go down a list to say hey, is this puppy healthy? Are we social? There's so much
that you, you just have to run a transparent business, when you deal with a heard management
situation and immune systems issues, no way around it.
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Council Member Bunch: I really appreciate your transparency on this but you go through this
process, but you don't actually quarantine the puppies for two weeks or anything.
Petland Owners: We quarantine for 48 hours to see that they have their vaccinations and then we
are seeing the veterinarian we're going through the treatments that Samantha talked about. We can
see that they have had the care that they need before they come in because we require it by the
breeders.
Council Member Bunch: I would like to ask Justine if she could come up. Justine when the
Animal Shelter gets a dog what's the process that they go through before that dog is available?
Justine Lentz: Right, so we obviously we have the ordinances to follow so any dog that we take
in or cat, for that matter, and unless they are coming directly from an owner, who can no longer
care for them they are held either five to seven days, depending on if they're microchips or not,
regardless of that, unless we have current vaccine records, we immediately give dogs a Parvo
distempor boosters, bordetella, which is kennel cough a dewormer and we weigh them as well treat
them with a topical flea and tick preventative. After they become our property then we also heart
worm test dogs over six months, they get spayed or neutered, they get their rabies vaccination if
they're old enough. We actually have an extremely strict protocol with puppies because they are
extremely vulnerable and same thing with kittens so we actually have one dedicated staff member
that's in charge of puppies. That person's not allowed to interact with any adult dogs. We don't
allow the public to come in and play with our puppies because we don't know where they've been.
Parvo is a virus that puppies can get that is often times fatal to them if it's not fatal then it's pretty
brutal. To get them through it we do treat puppies with parvo at our animal shelter. We have a
pretty good protocol for treating it but to be extra safe we don't allow people to handle our puppies
until they leave the facility or until they have three parvo distemper boosters onboard. Parvo is a
hardy virus, you can track it on your shoes, you can walk through it, you just don't know until it's
too late and once they start showing symptoms, a lot of times you can't test for it ahead of time.
You can't test until they're showing symptoms.
Council Member Bunch: So that's pretty lengthy process there as well, but before that puppy or
young dog is available to be adopted, how many days does that take?
Justine Lentz: I would say the minimum obviously five days usually it probably averages more
in the seven to 10 range. Would never turn around and adopt out a puppy that I had less than 72
hours because anything can pop up whether it's worms that maybe didn't get eliminated the first
round. You know parvo does have a longer incubation period to so I mean that's always the
possibility that's not going to break insulators that we try to be as cautious as we can.
Council Member Bunch: The last time I was in the shelter, quite a while back. I know there were
some procedure where you, you know course everybody wants to play with the puppies you know
because they're so cute, but I believe, I had to walk through some kind of substance to clean my
shoes off. I couldn't just take one kitten out and put it back and get another one, I had to wash my
hands and be really careful that way.
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Justine Lentz: Our veterinarian, Dr. Henley, has protocols for everything and of course we train
our volunteers as well. Because anytime you're dealing with them like I heard right like a large
population of animals, you just have to be extra safe to keep everybody helping as much as
possible.
Council Member Turk: I'm wondering if there's a way that more time can be allowed.
Sounds like we're one day away from certification for this business with the Fire Marshall. I'm
wondering if that can be held up for a couple of weeks to allow, maybe Justine and the owners of
Petland, to maybe discuss if there any is any room to cooperate or collaborate. If there's any room
for that, so I don't know what other Council Members feel or if that's even an option.
Council Member Scroggin: I feel like this can't be about Petland. It needs to be about is this
something we want for all or not and that's what the decision needs to be about. Unfortunately, it
seems like some people think it's about Petland. It needs to be, do we want this type of business
specifically riveted there or not. So I really worry. So hopefully it's something that we do,
independent of whatever Petland is doing.
Council Member Kinion, spoke and echoed what Council Member Scroggin stated. He went on
to provide the history he has had with the Human Society and explained supply and demand when
it comes to obtaining a puppy. He also provided an example of when there was a pet store in
Fayetteville that sold puppies and kittens. He that the store closed and the conditions that the pets
were in were not good.
Council Member Bunch, spoke and echoed agreement with Council Member Scroggin and
Kinion. She went on to explain the reason she co -sponsored this ordinance was due to the amount
of concern she has about Petland but stated that she wanted to take Petland out of the equation
altogether. She explained her own experience with purchasing purebred dogs and adopting from
the animal shelter.
Council Member Harvey: I think a lot of the emails that I received was about being sure that the
animals were being humanly treated and if there's a way to track how the animals come through,
where they're coming from, whether they're sold at Petland or something like that is that something
that we're open to or we're just saying, where it's just easier, we can't we really don't have the
resources to go and inspect and track that and that's what we're concerned about right. I guess for
people that are wanting us to protect animals, the answer is to reduce the number of places where
the hands are exchange and I think that's what's happening that's the question that the people of
Fayetteville are asking us like you're our City Council, how can you help us protect our animals
and y'all are doing it sounds like an incredible job and we also have constituents saying we we've
unfortunately have these stories and so like we're having these dilemmas, because we absolutely
want business. Your business sounds really good you're not you're the exception and so how do
we balance that. We want people to be able to get the amazing dogs, they have, and you've had a
great experience and that's anxieties something everybody's probably experiencing right now
maybe a labradoodles the answer from Petland I don't know but we really don't have any way to
track that I guess the issue, so I don't know if this ordinance can include a tracking you know, like
if we just said hey for every animal that is sold in Fayetteville is there a way to track the animals?
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Council Member Bunch: I don't know about that. I always try to take everything with a grain of
salt and you know you hear horror stories and they're designed to be horrible stories there to really
make a point so I kind of pull back from the worst case scenario and think, maybe it's not quite as
bad as that but I don't know what we can do about that. I don't think there's any way we can.
Council Member Scroggin: I would love to table this and look at it at another point. I agree with
you that that we need a mechanism. I know it's at the state level but think about we allow entity to
sell alcohol, but if they do it wrong, the state goes you don't get to sell alcohol anymore. So, we
need to look at this little bit more and come up with something so if they do it fine, then they get
to keep doing it. If somebody else comes in, with some derivation of the name pet and they're not
doing it right than we can say hey we know you're not doing it right you're going to have to fix it
and temporarily lose that right, just like alcohol places if they keep selling it to minors, they don't
get to sell to anybody for a while and if they keep doing that, then they either never get to sell or
get to go to jail so I think we need to review this and write something that that works independent
of their name and more what they're actually doing on the ground.
Council Member Kinion, spoke and echoed his comments that he had made earlier in the evening.
He went on to explain that the City of Fayetteville cannot afford an agency or to be an agency to
go out and enforce some of the ideas that had been brought up.
Council Member Hertzberg, spoke and explained that the reason she had brought this forward
to protect the health and safety of animals.
Council Member Hertzberg moved to suspend the rules and go to the second reading.
Council Member Bunch seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Council Member Turk: Can I just comment that I think we need more information, I am so sorry
that we are under the gun with one day to go but I'm feeling like this is being really rushed. I guess
you guys know that I like to do a lot of research, I feel like this issue was way more complex than
I realized and so you know I'll support moving this a little bit forward, but I would really like to
not make the final vote tonight, if there is any way for us to delay the fire department from
certifying this business or whatever the right term is so I will just put that out there.
Council Member Harvey: I am okay to hold it as well.
Council Member Bunch: I would like to hear Kit's comment on what was just said and I don't
know that we can even do that, I don't think you can do that.
Mayor Jordan: You can withdraw your motions.
Kit Williams: You could do that. If you suspend the rules go third reading, it's ready to be voted
on, it can be table then but I don't understand how that would be different and actually I think we
have other Council Members that want to talk about this, so I that's all I want to say.
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Council Member Kinion: I can't speak for everyone, but, from my point of view I do know a lot
about this and I do you have a lot of compassion and so I would go ahead and vote and you all
have to do whatever you have to do, but I think this is something that is valuable for my values so
just wanted to let that be known.
Council Member Bunch: I don't know how long it's been since that particular pet store was in
existence, i mean we've had two big stores Pet Smart and Petco in Fayetteville for many years, but
they have not sold animals like the store that Mark was describing. I do know that was years ago.
It was a grime place. It was suspicious there on the animals they had. That is in the back of my
mind. If we table this or try to work around this one particular business we open ourselves up to
other businesses that are not as qualified as Petland probably is. That is a concern to me. We have
had that in Fayetteville before. These pet stores sell puppies because puppies are irresistible.
Council Member Kinion: I think that it sounds like they were forcing people to get a pet that
comes from a shelter or rescue. I think that Emily said it from her point of view, she likes her
French bulldogs and she got French bulldogs but she still understands the demand for animals from
high volume animal breeders, and so I think that's a very valuable point of view, because I know
her dogs, and they are cute and they're purebred that she's still out there, trying to do the right thing
and reduce the demand. It's the demand for high volume animal breeders, that is in the industry so
anyway, thank you Emily for your point of view, I think that was valid.
Council Member Wiederkehr: I have not researched this, I am not overly competent on the issue
of pets at this point in my life, I do know the code, however, and I do know that this body does not
have the ability to impact an inspection from a department, whether it's the Building Department
or the Fire Department. They're acting on a ministerial permit under state law that says, if you meet
the requirements, you get your permit you get your inspections and the outcome of that is
determined by the code. I would not like us to be distracted with talk about an inspection because
that's irrelevant for our body. I appreciated Sloan and Teresa expressing concern that they wish we
had a little more time to research, this in, and that is my sentiment not being overly qualified in
this. I do think, however, that the Council has spoken with some significant wisdom, saying that
the issue isn't the sale of animals, the issue isn't the puppies, the issue is the breed animals
themselves and that's beyond our ability to regulate. I have eminent respect for the Chamber of
Commerce but at the same time we regulate the sale of alcohol illegal product on Sundays in
Washington county and I wish we could change that Mr. Mayor but that's beyond this Council's
per view as well. I met this quandary of saying, while I don't want to get distracted that there's an
inspection that's not our purview I don't want to get distracted with the sale of puppies that's not
what we're talking about we're talking about the care and condition of breed animals and whether
we have an ability to impact that the business entity, has the ability to sell more mature animals,
such as you and I are mayor, or they have the ability to refer people to Springdale to their other
facility to say I've got just the animal you're looking for you didn't find what we had available
through our local immediate access, and so I don't think that we're curtailing their ability to be a
profitable business either. So, I had no idea that this would unfold, the way that it did I thought it
was a relatively straight forward item.
Council Member Hertzberg moved to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.
Council Member Bunch seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed 6-2. Council
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City Council Meeting Minutes
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Member Hertzberg, Harvey, Jones, Kinion, Wiederkehr, and Bunch voted yes. Council
Member Scroggin and Turk voted no.
City Attorney Kit Williams read the ordinance.
Council Member Wiederkehr: I think the emergency part makes it feel like it personalizes it to
the business as opposed to the topic in general, and that would just be the only other comment that
I would have to make. I like the general approach to it beyond that.
Kit.Williams: Well, the emergency clause will not be voted on first only the ordinance itself, and
then there will be a second, though, on the emergency clause.
Council Member Kinion: I do like your point of view there. I get it.
Council Member Turk: I just want to say that I just feel this issue is so complex and it's being
really rushed, and I wish I had a little bit more time to do some research so that that's my point of
view.
Mayor Jordan: I think, for what it's worth we have done these before. Kit brings out a really good
point. I was on the Council when we did the sidewalk, you know no sale on sidewalks, I agree
with you, Mark, it was in some pet stores in this town, I'm not saying that this pet store is like that,
but I have seen some pretty rough pet stores. Now I think Mark brings out a really good point, if I
had to what vote for this, because it is part of my values as well and I have a dog that I have gotten
at the animal shelter and I become, quite in fact I've gotten two, animals are like family to me so
it's just part of my grain and I believe that this type of ordinance needs to be passed not because
this business but because it is the right thing to do.
Mayor Jordan asked shall the ordinance pass. Upon roll call the ordinance passed
unanimously.
Council Member Scroggin moved add an emergency clause. Council Member Bunch
seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion failed 4-4. Council Member Hertzberg,
Harvey, Jones, and Bunch voted yes. Council Member Kinion, Wiederkehr, Scroggin, and
Turk voted no.
Mayor Jordan: So that puts it on board for 30 days, right?
Kit Williams: that's right.
Ordinance 6587 as Recorded in the office of the City Clerk
Announcements: None
City Council A enda Session Presentations:
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City Council Meeting Minutes
July 19, 2022
Page 28 of 28
Agenda Session Presentation - Economic Vitality Contract Services Semi -Annual Update, Devin
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113 West Mountain Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-8323 www.fayetteville-ar.gov