Agenda Highlights 1/7/25
At the Fort Smith Board of Directors meeting scheduled for 1/7/25, the Board will vote on a resolution officially expressing opposition to an interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel being located in Fort Smith. The City has not been approached concerning the potential for a facility or involved in discussions about a facility but the resolution is in response to a presentation made to the public in December by Arkansas Nuclear Voice regarding the idea.
The Board will vote on whether to extend the waiving of parking fees (that ended January 3rd) to February 4th to allow the Board an additional month for discussion and seeking input to evaluate what to do about the meters, potential including doing away with the paid meter parking permanently. The City staff says that the parking has been no more or less congested without the paid parking than it was with the paid parking. The meters bring in about $5000 per month that is used largely to offset the cost of the meters and parking enforcement.
The Board will vote on the financing terms from Arvest Bank and First National Bank for the $4 million purchase of the City office building at 623 Garrison. The City would finance the purchase over 20 years by issuing revenue bonds with obligating a portion of the franchise fees the City collects as collateral. With this bond sale, no mortgage would be required. The interest would be 5.54%. The cost of the service on the debt would be $340,178.12 annually. Alternatively, the City could opt to pay for part of the purchase in cash or to pay for the entire purchase outright in cash (and save the total of $2.8 million in interest over the 20 years).
If the financing terms are approved at the meeting, the next step would be a public hearing regarding obligating the franchise fees. Then if that is approved, approval would be needed of the ordinance issuing the bonds. Then there would be a 30 day referendum period on the bond ordinance. If all of those things were to stay on track as expected, the purchase could be made on February 28.
The Board will vote on a zoning change for the empty lot at 1400 South U that would allow for U-Haul (that is adjacent to the property already) to build a 3-story 102,686 square ft mini-storage facility.
The Board will vote on appropriation from the general fund to move landscaping of downtown that has previously been contracted out to an outside company to being done in-house by the Parks Department. The landscaping would cost a total of $175,290 but $44,000 would be paid by the CBID, for a total of only $131,290 coming from the City.
The Board will vote on whether to contract with Hawkins-Weir for $224,440 for design services for consent decree sewer work including repair or replacement of 24 manholes and 23 pipe line segments.
The Board will vote on whether to approve the charter establishing the Water Utility Advisory Committee. The 7 member citizen committee would meet at least monthly to research, review, investigate, and discuss issues pertaining to water and sewer operations and capital projects and would make recommendations to the Board of Directors.
