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existing industries by allowing a portion of the local sales tax paid on new equipment purchases to be refunded. The city's downtown area continued to grow and prosper during 2010 with several new businesses openings and several buildings being completely renovated. The recent acquisition of a significant grant will improve the streetscape of Main Street by adding things such as new park benches and trash receptacles. Several activities brought many visitors to our community this past year and enhanced economic activity. These included several high school and college re-unions, Batesville Speedway's weekly races, the downtown antique festival, concerts, and the regional football playoffs at Batesville High School in the fall, the film festival, and the Christmas light display, all of which resulted in a significant increase in business to our hotels and restaurants. The city continued the expansion of our Christmas lights program and participation in the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism's Trail of Lights program. Many citizens have expressed that they feel Batesville had the best Christmas Light display of all the cities participating in the Trail of Lights this year. Transportation projects in our community were one of the big highlights of 2010. The completion of the Harrison Street widening project provided substantial improvements to traffic flow in that congested area of our city. The completion of the Highway 167 widening project north of Batesville set the stage for the next phase, which will begin shortly and provide five lanes just past the North Recreation Complex. These projects also included several miles of new sidewalks for our community. The stoplight upgrades on St Louis Street were completed by the Arkansas Highway Department in 2010. The addition of the left turn signals on 30th Street and Lawrence Street has greatly enhanced our traffic flow. Recently, we announced that Flowers Bakery plans to build an unloading facility on the south side of Lawrence Street. This new facility will greatly reduce the number of trailer trucks having to partially park on Lawrence Street in order to unload, therefore, greatly improving public safety. Other projects include work on the $45-50 million dollar wastewater project which is being financed with a 2.5% loan from the state. We received a 6.3 million dollar stimulus grant from the federal government for the tunnel portion of the project because we were shovel-ready and it was a "green", energy project. Phase I of the project is progressing and phase II will be bid on soon. The city continued modernizing its zoning codes to encourage both residential and commercial development. The first new subdivision completed under the new 2008 subdivision code was completed in 2010 with sidewalks on both sides of the street to encourage healthy living. The city continued to focus on the recreational needs of the community and its citizens. The city hired the University of Arkansas to conduct a complete inventory of existing facilities, and conduct a needs assessment of the recreational facilities and programs offered by the city and county. The project produced a detailed report of the condition of the parks, and recommendations for moving forward on providing sufficient facilities and programs for our citizens. A task force met over a two year period and brought a proposal to the City Council in the spring of 2010 asking that the city call for an election to build a community center, water park complex and a unified sports complex. The total cost of the project exceeded 45 million dollars and would have established Batesville as having the premiere facility of this type in the state. Unfortunately, the vote failed by less than one hundred votes, with a total of 2100 votes cast. The city will continue to evaluate how to move forward with these recreational needs in the future. The city continued to provide new walking and biking lanes for our citizens. The new paved walking trail from Harrison Street to Myers Avenue at Row Lake was completed. Another grant, for the second phase, leading to Riverside Park has been submitted. Additionally, the city constructed a new bike lane along Pioneer Drive to the high school and also from the high school north to the Woodland Heights Subdivision. Bike lanes have also been striped in the wide area of Broad Street and Eagle Mountain Boulevard. Currently, in West Batesville, work continues on the new park with playground equipment to be installed soon. Habitat for Humanity donated the land to this project. The city continued its cooperative effort with Independence County and the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission in establishing a Shooting Sports Complex north of Batesville. Work is progressing on schedule. Batesville was one of five communities in Arkansas chosen to participate in the Growing Healthy Communities Project. The city received over $10,000 in grant money to provide a tool shed for