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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-07-12 MINUTES OF COUNCIL JULY 12, 2016 The Batesville City Council met in regular session on July 12, at 5:30 pm at the Municipal Building. Mayor Rick Elumbaugh presided over the meeting. Utility Billing Supervisor Nick Baxter gave the invocation. Upon roll call, the following Councilmembers answered present; Chris Beller, Tommy Bryant, Sonya Crafton, Margaret Henley, Paige Hubbard, Doug Matthews, Chris Poole and David Shetron. Also present were the City Clerk Denise Johnston and City Attorney Tim Meitzen. Councilmember Bryant moved to approve the minutes from the previous meeting. Councilmember Shetron seconded and all voted for. Councilmember Bryant moved to approve the prepared agenda. Councilmember Matthews seconded and all voted for. CITIZENS COMMENTS None UNFINISHED BUSINESS None NEW BUSINESS A) RECOGNIZE MR. LYNDAL WAITS ON HIS RETIREMENT FROM THE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT Mayor Elumbaugh recognized Mr. Lyndal Waits and presented him with a certificate for his 42 years of service to the Arkansas Highway Department. Mr. Waits thanked the Mayor for the recognition and said he was actually born in Batesville but grew up elsewhere. He said when he had the opportunity to work at the Highway Department in Batesville he grabbed the chance. He said he has had several chances to leave Batesville but he stayed here because he wanted to. Mr. Waits praised Batesville and the Mayor and Council for the progress the City is making. B) HEAR FROM A CITIZEN ABOUT A POSSIBLE VEHICLE DAMAGE Ms. Amber Henley, who lives at 2740 N. Central, addressed the council regarding damage to her vehicle that she said the brush truck caused. Ms. Henley said she had several tree limbs close to her drive way and when the city employees were cleaning up the limbs, her car was scratched during the process. Mayor Elumbaugh said he and Safety Director Chris Cash spoke with our employees and they said they did not scratch Ms. Henley's car. Ms. Henley's car is a 2005 Nissan and she admitted that there are several scratches on the vehicle but insists that the employees made additional and deep scratches. Ms. Henley got two estimates for the damage, Bishop's Collision Repair for$2,231.86 and Gillihan's Body Shop for $3,328.91. The council discussed the fact that no one saw the incident happen and no police report was filled. They also discussed the repair estimates being so large and probably included scratches that have occurred over the past 10 years. Councilmember Shetron moved to pay Ms. Henley $500.00 to compensate for any possible damages our employee may have made. Councilmember Bryant seconded and all voted for. C) POLICE DEPARTMENT REPORT Batesville Police Chief Alan Cockrill address the council with his monthly report. The Chief gave the council an annual report since he was unable to make last month's meeting. The report gave statistics for the past year including offenses, arrests and accidents reported. Auxiliary and full time officers worked 105 special events which involved over 100 hours of service time. The Batesville Police Department employees 24 full time personnel and 19 reserve officers. The council praised Chief Cockrill for the success of the first year of our police department. Councilmember Bryant asked the Chief how many speeding tickets his department has written since its conception. The Chief said they have not written any speeding tickets but lots of warnings. Councilmember Bryant said he just wanted to set the record straight from the talk that Batesville is now a speed trap with the new police department. D) ENGINEER'S REPORT City Engineer Damon Johnson addressed the council with his monthly report. Mr. Johnson said the construction crews are working hard to finish the line replacement on Pine Street before school starts. He said the Wastewater Treatment Plant is still working out "bugs", however, they are not major and they expected to have a few things to work through. Mr. Johnson said we had an accident on Neeley Street where one of our employees accidently turned over one of our backhoes. Thankfully the employee was not injured however the backhoe is probably totaled. He said the backhoe will need to be replaced and he will hopefully have some options for the council at the next meeting. Mr. Johnson said he went to a session at the recent Municipal League conference regarding asphalt maintenance. He said there is a program that will map all of our streets and pinpoint problems and help keep up with what repairs need to be made. E) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO ESTABLISH AND AMEND FEES FOR THE MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS OF CITY OWNED PARKS AND RECREATION FACILITIES Councilmember Beller introduced an ordinance to establish and amend fees for the maintenance and operations of City owned parks and recreation facilities. Councilmember Beller said he would like to speak before the ordinance is read. He said there has been a lot of wrong information floating around town and on social media. Dr. Beller said the Parks and Recreation Commission have worked for months on the proposed fee structure and lots of thought and consideration had been given to the recommendation. He said their concern was making the new Community Center and Aquatics Park affordable for all of Batesville and Independence County. Dr. Beller said the fee was finally agreed upon and then the commission decided to give the citizens who live inside the City limits of Batesville a discount. He said this decision has caused a lot of anger and rumors throughout the county that are simply not true. The main one being that the City is charging people outside the city limits more because Batesville is still mad over the Southside election. Again, Dr. Beller said that is absolutely not true, that the difference is to give the citizens of Batesville a discount, not to punish Southside. Dr. Beller said in order to show our spirit to get along, section 2 of the ordinance states that memberships purchased within the first sixty days of operation will be charged the resident rate and will renew at the resident rate, as long as, the membership remains current and is not allowed to lapse. Mayor Elumbaugh asked Mr. Meitzen to read the ordinance in full. After Mr. Meitzen read the ordinance in full the Mayor opened the floor for discussion. The Mayor said he was disappointed about the lies that are being told about the new facility. He said for the past 30 years, the City and County has had a good working relationship, however, the past 4 years have been very difficult. The Mayor said the City has always taken the high road and said until 4 years ago, the County would give the City $25,000 to $50,000 to help in maintaining all of our parks. The Mayor noted that approximately 60% of the kids and families using our parks are County residents. There being no further discussion, the Mayor said the ordinance will be put on the next agenda for the second reading. F) PAID BILLS REPORT The Council was given a copy of the June, 2015 paid bills report for review. G) EXECUTIVE SESSION Councilmember Bryant moved to go into executive session and Councilmember Henley seconded. All voted for. Upon returning from executive session, Councilmember Beller moved to re- appoint Mr. Joe Shell to the Planning Commission. Councilmember Shetron seconded and all voted for. Councilmember Poole moved to re-appoint Mr. Tommy Bryant and appoint Mr. Robb Roberts to the IDC Board. Councilmember Beller seconded and all voted for. MAYOR COMMENTS Mayor Elumbaugh said he will be out of town for the next council meeting and asked the council to cancel the meeting. Councilmember Bryant moved to cancel the meeting scheduled for July 26t". Councilmember Poole seconded and all voted for. LIAISON REPORTS None COUNCIL COMMENTS Councilmember Bryant gave each of the council a map of the new annexed area for Southside. Mr. Bryant said the area now includes the stop light at the top of Ramsey Mountain at the intersection of Hwy 167 and 25. He said since the stop light is now in the city limits of Southside the City of Batesville should not be responsible for the maintenance of the stop light. Councilmember Bryant moved to no longer do the repairs and maintenance on the stop light at the intersection of Hwy 167 and 25. Councilmember Shetron seconded and all voted for. ADJOURNMENT There being no more business, Councilmember Bryant moved that the meeting be adjourned. Councilmember Shetron seconded and all voted for. RICK ELUMBAUGH, MAYOR DENISE M. JOHNSTON, CITY CLERK