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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-02-08 MINUTES OF COUNCIL FEBRUARY 8,2011 The Batesville City Council met for its regular meeting on February 8, at 5:30 PM at the Municipal Building. Mayor Elumbaugh called the meeting to order. Councilmember Insell gave the invocation. Upon roll call,the following answered present;Tommy Bryant, Margarett Henley, Paige Hubbard, Davy Insell, Doug Matthews, Chris Poole and David Shetron. Also present were the City Clerk Denise Johnston and City Attorney Lindsey Castleberry. Councilmember Fred Krug was absent. CITIZENS COMMENTS None UNFINISHED BUSINESS None NEW BUSINESS Before beginning new business, Mayor Elumbaugh recognized Sheriff Steve Jeffery who was in the audience. The Sheriff said he is going to start providing the City Council with the same information and reports that he gives the Quorum Court. Councilmember Shetron said they planned to have another Interlocal meeting next week. A) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AND ORDINANCE FOR RE-ZONING Councilmember Matthews introduced a resolution to revise the Batesville Comprehensive Plan. Code Enforcement Officer Chad McClure addressed the council and explained the needs for the revision. Councilmember Matthews moved to read the resolution by title only. Councilmember Insell seconded. The roll call count was 7 for and 0 against. Mr. Castleberry read the resolution by title only. Councilmember Bryant moved to adopt the resolution. Councilmember Matthews seconded and the roll call count was 7 for and 0 against. The resolution was given number 2011-02-01-R. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND THE BATESVILLE ZONING DISTRICTS MAP Councilmember Matthews introduced an ordinance to amend the Batesville Zoning Districts Map. Councilmember Matthews moved to read the ordinance by title only. Councilmember Insell seconded and the roll call count was 7 for and 0 against. Mr. Castleberry read the ordinance by title only. Councilmember Matthews moved to further suspend the rules and waive the second and third readings. The roll call count was 7 for and 0 against. Councilmember Mathews moved to adopt the ordnance and Councilmember Bryant seconded. The roll call count was 7 for and 0 against. The ordinance was given number 2011-02-01. Councilmember Matthews moved to adopt the emergency clause and Councilmember Bryant seconded. The roll call count was 7 for and 0 against. B) FIRE CHIEF BRENT GLEGHORN WITH YEAR-END REPORT Fire Chief Brent Gleghorn addressed the council and gave them a year-end report for the Fire Department. C) BATESVILLE AIRPORT BUSINESS Airport Commissioners Charles Barnett and Karl Kemp addressed the council regarding airport business. They reminded the council that Ms. Mary Amos,who has been the airport manager for the past 32 years, is retiring. The airport advertised for the position and had several applicants. The commission narrowed the applicants to 5 and conducted interviews and then narrowed the selection down to two. They would like to offer the position to one candidate but they said they needed a better employment package to offer. The commissioners asked the council to consider making the airport workers city employees which would include employee health insurance and APERS retirement. They also asked the council to reallocate the $50,000.00 in the 2011 budget,which was intended for grant matches, to instead help pay for the salaries and benefits for the airport. Mr. Barnett said they had visited earlier with the Mayor and City Clerk and in their discussions,they decided it would be better if the payroll and accounting be done through the clerk's office. The airport currently pays an accounting firm to do their bookkeeping. Moving it to the clerk's office would save that expense. Councilmember Matthews told the council he was for the requests made by the commissioners but wanted the council to know that approving the reallocation and making the airport workers city employees would bean ongoing financial commitment. Council member Matthews moved to make the airport workers city employees effective March 1St and enroll them in the Municipal Health insurance program and APERS retirement. Councilmember Shetron seconded and all voted for. Secondly, Councilmember Matthews moved to reallocate the funds and move the bookkeeping to the clerk's office. Councilmember Insell seconded and all voted for. D) ENGINEER'S REPORT City Engineer Damon Johnson addressed the council with his engineer's report. Mr.Johnson said he didn't have anything new to report from the previous meeting. With no questions from the council, Mr.Johnson was excused. E) EXECUTIVE SESSION Councilmember Matthews moved to go into executive session. Councilmember Bryant seconded and all voted for. Upon returning from executive session, Councilmember Shetron moved to re-appoint Mr. Larry Morris and appoint Mr. Kenny Smothers to the City Tree Board. Mr. Smothers will be replacing Mr. Brian Langston. Councilmember Henley seconded and all voted for. Both terms will expire 09/08/12. Councilmember Shetron moved to re-appoint Mr. Butch Duncan to the Batesville Appeals Commission. Councilmember Insell seconded and all voted for. Mr. Duncan's term will expire 9/8/15. F) REVIEW PAID BILLS REPORT FOR JANUARY,2011 The Council reviewed the paid bills report for January, 2011. G) STATE OF THE CITY—MAYOR ELUMBAUGH Tonight it is my honor to be presenting to you the State of the City address. I take great pride in having served this wonderful community as your mayor for the last four years. Together, we have made much progress during this time, but there is always work yet to be done in moving a community forward. 2010 was a challenging year with several large and unexpected expenditures including certification of the levee, and substantial improvements required for the Municipal Building, which included the replacement of the thirty year old roof. I would like to report to you, the citizens, our current status on economic development, transportation, infrastructure, zoning, recreation and our growing healthy community. The city continues to encourage economic development and the retention of existing jobs; as well as assisting the county economic development efforts with securing new jobs. The ongoing construction of the Department of Human Services Call Center is a great example of the cooperative effort between the city and county. The city annexed the property along with five other parcels of land, and is providing the water and wastewater services for this new facility, which represents over one hundred new jobs. The city continued participating in the AEDC Tax-Back Program which encourages new investment by 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 Batesville's first community garden, a walk ability survey, and maps in order to identify the walking and biking trails in the Batesville area. In conclusion, the state of our city is by far better than many across our nation. We have been fortunate that our community has been able to gain jobs over the last year and that city revenue has been reasonably stable. This has allowed the city to continue without any reduction in city services. Batesville is one the few cities of its size in Arkansas without a general operations and maintenance sales tax. We have been fortunate that our general budget has been in the black the last four years, and has allowed the city reserves to increase slightly; however, the unexpected expenditures on the Municipal Building underscored the need for the city to have a larger reserve fund. The city will continue to work closely with the county on economic development and many other things that benefit our community. We will continue to support local industry in job retention and meet the many other challenges we face in light of the current economic climate. We will continue to study the recreational needs of our community and develop plans for moving progress forward in this area. We will continue studying ways to make sure taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely, as we are currently doing with the evaluation of the police inter-local agreement with the county. The city council members continue to work extremely hard. They take great pride in representing the citizens of Batesville. The city employees, from the administration to our crews on the streets, continue to amaze me with their dedication and tireless efforts to make our city run efficiently, both day and night. Once again, it's an honor to begin my second term as your mayor. My hope is that God will continue to bless our great city and county. MAYOR COMMENTS Mayor Elumbaugh said in search for a used bucket truck,they found several that were going to be auctioned on February 17th in Memphis,TN. The Mayor asked for out of state travel for Johnny Abbott, Don Martin and Johnny Coles to travel to Memphis on the 16th to look over the vehicles and then back on the 17th to bid. Councilmember Henley moved to approve the out of state travel. Councilmember Bryant seconded and all voted for. The Mayor also asked for out of state travel approval for him to attend the National League of Mayor's Conference in Washington, DC on March 12-16. Councilmember Shetron moved to approval the out of state travel and Councilmember Bryant seconded. All voted for. The Mayor said there were several conflicts with the February 22nd scheduled council meeting. After a discussion, Councilmember Bryant moved to cancel the scheduled meeting and Councilmember Insell seconded. All voted for. LIAISON REPORTS Councilmember Shetron reported on the recent Interlocal meeting with the City and the County. Mr. Shetron said both sides were working together to work out the problems with the current Interlocal Agreement and was hopeful that the issues could be resolved. Mr. Shetron said he would like to schedule another meeting for February 15th at 5:30 PM. COUNCIL COMMENTS None ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, Councilmember Bryant moved that the meeting be adjourned and Councilmember Henley seconded. All voted for. RICK ELUMBAUGH, MAYOR DENISE M.JOHNSTON,CITY CLERK