Agenda Highlights 6/18/24
The Board will vote on amending the Unified Development Ordinance to create a Military Compatibility Area Overlay District (MCAOD). The Military Compatibility Area Overlay District would include the entire City and the extraterritorial jurisdictions. But only 3 areas of the city would have City regulations, the Lighting MCA, Noise MCA, and Security MCA. The Lighting MCA would apply to property within the runway buffer and prohibit use of search lights, lasers, and high intensity advertising lights. The Noise MCA would cover areas near the airport in the 65-80 decibel noise contours and would require new noise sensitive land uses to meet sound transmission classes for their noise contour. The Security MCA would cover property physically contiguous to the airport property and would require a buffer of 30 ft for all property with a shared boundary with the airport, would establish a 35 ft max height above the Established Airfield Elevation for buildings, and would require Board of Directors approval for all property sold, transferred, or developed by any non-US entity or its agent. The issue was tabled at the 6-4-24 meeting to allow for Director Rego who was absent at that meeting to be able to vote on the issue.
If the creation of the MCAOD passes, the Board will also vote to end the moratorium on residential construction near the airport. In June 2022, the City passed a moratorium on residential construction in the area near the airport and the moratorium was extended in October 2023.
The Board will vote on whether or not to authorize the City Attorney to proceed with an interpleader action regarding $401,792 in taxes that were improperly collected from Parrot Island admission tickets from 4-20-21 to 11-30-23 when a POS system was accidentally set up incorrectly so that it was charging sales tax that it should not have been. The procedure that will be up for a vote is to initiate the interpleader action and place the improperly collected funds with the Court. Then the people who paid the taxes will be given notice and opportunity to make claims for refunds of the tax money they paid. The issue was tabled at the 5-21-24 meeting to allow for Rick Coleman, CEO of American Resort Management that runs the water park to be able to attend the meeting and answer questions
The Board will vote on purchasing a replacement HVAC system for the broken one at the Senior Activity Center on Cavanaugh from Robbins Refrigeration for $114,427.50.
The Board will vote on purchasing a house at 2518 Dodson through the Flooded Residence Buyout Program used to purchase flooded properties when purchasing the property is cheaper than performing the drainage improvement project that would remedy the flooding problem. The cost of the property would be $179,000.
The Board will vote on releasing $292,000 in Climate Pollution Reduction Grant funds to be paid to McClelland Consulting Engineers for the final step of the design phase of the Alleyway Rehabilitation Project.
The Board will vote on purchasing a filter for the Lake Fort Smith water treatment plant to replace one that is broken. The filter would be installed by Crawford Construction at a total cost of $99,138.
The Board will vote on whether to replace the lighting at the police station with LED lights to increase energy efficiency. The replacement would cost a total of $36,125.24, but with the OG&E incentive program paying $25,260.43, the cost to the City would only be a total of $10,864.81. The savings from switching to LED lighting would be $14,779.80 annually.
The Board will vote on a 2 year permit for W&W Roll Offs for non-residential solid waste collection at a 5% franchise fee.
The Board will vote on purchasing two Ford high roof conversion vans for the Transit Department demand response service. The vans cost $102,604 each for a total of $205,208, but the Federal Transit Administration grant will reimburse 80% of the cost resulting in both vans costing a total of only $41,042 in City funds.
The Transit Department would strongly prefer to transition its demand response service fleet to electric vehicles, but currently the desired electric vehicles are not available as a part of the Buy America program for the FTA grant. Work is underway to obtain a Buy America waiver. But the two vehicles are needed currently, so gas power ones would be purchased for now to meet that immediate need.
