Highlights of the Fort Smith Board of Directors Meeting 2/1/22
The Fort Smith Board of Directors meeting held 2-1-22 was lead by Vice Mayor Rego in the absence of Mayor McGill. Director Martin attended the meeting virtually.
The Board voted to table the issue concerning the Next Step Homeless Services appeal of the Planning Commission’s denial of the zoning change to allow for a homeless facility including 30 tiny-house style housing units to be built on a vacant lot at 1400 South U. The Board had discussed at the end of last week’s study session that they would potentially table the issue at the 2-1-22 meeting because they would like more time to process the responses from the study session and the new change to the Next Step plan that in response to concerns from some nearby neighbors would no longer include offering a day shelter at the U Street location, focusing instead on just the transitional housing. At the 2-1-22 meeting, Director Morton mentioned that there had been another neighborhood meeting on the issue held 1-31-22 and the Board had received several pages of notes from the meeting at just 3 or 4 pm on 2-1-22. He expressed his feeling the Board had not had enough time to digest the feedback from those notes and motioned to table the issue again until a vote at the 2-15-22 meeting. All the directors except for Director Good voted in favor of tabling the issue.
The Board voted unanimously to approve a zoning change from commercial to residential for an existing single family residential structure on the property at 823 North 9th.
The Board voted unanimously to approve a zoning change that would allow for Walmart to build 2 pickup towers at their store at 2425 South Zero. Director Dawson asked for a description of the pickup towers. Planning Director Maggie Rice clarified that Walmart wants to convert the area that is currently the garden center into a kiosk area for pickup including two of the giant pickup towers that are like ATM machines for groceries. Orders placed online for pickup are dispensed through the automated towers (sort of like the Carvana car vending machine). Dawson said she found the idea of the towers “fascinating” but also said she “wonders how many people it will put out of work”.
The Board voted unanimously to approve the Police Department hiring a Crime Analyst for $75,000. Police Chief Baker spoke about the real time relevant stats provided by a Crime Analyst having been “crucial to our success in combating crime trends we have seen in Fort Smith”. He mentioned that especially in the current staff shortage an on-site analyst helps the department know “how best to deploy our limited resources”. Previously, the Police Department had been using an embedded analyst that was provided as a part of the package of services from Lexis Nexis. However, Lexis Nexis will no longer be offering embedded analysts, so one will need to be hired by the city. Director Catsavis asked how long the department had been using a Crime Analyst. Baker answered that through multiple agencies the Police Department has had someone in that position for at least a decade. Director Morton asked if the embedded Crime Analyst , Anna Hill, was reassigned and wondered if we might be able to hire her to the position in-house now. Baker responded that the Police Department had “aggressively recruited” her, but that she has accepted a better package at a different position elsewhere with Lexis Nexis.
The Board voted unanimously to approve using Govdeals.com to sell surplus city property ranging from small items like furniture and office supplies to higher ticket bigger items like vehicles and heavy equipment via online auction. Purchasing Manager Alie Bahsoon spoke on the issue and mentioned that extensive research was done concerning ways to auction surplus property and that when they city reached out to Purchasing Managers in other Arkansas cities they learned that many of them use govdeals.com. Bahsoon mentioned some advantages to using Govdeals online auction services over the previous method of annual live auctions including that assets will no longer need to sit for a whole year until auction time and that listings will be available for the whole world to bid on. Director Settle asked if the new system would still allow for Fort Smith to make deals with other area cities (like smaller town and volunteer Fire Departments that want our used Fire equipment). Bahsoon assured that because the city decides what goes on the website, the flexibility would still be there to decide what is handled locally that way and what goes up for online auction. Director Morton asked about the system’s ability to offer items to other departments within the city first. Bahsoon explained that the system allows for the items to be listed so that they are only viewable by the city departments for a period before they are made viewable and able to be bid on by the public at large. Department heads would be notified via email about the listings for things that are to be potentially auctioned and if another department wanted a listed item, they could claim it before it would be auctioned. Morton also expressed wanting a confirmation from each department head that they’d seen the potential auction item listings and did or didn’t want them. Bahsoon agreed on that department head approval before the auction goes live.
The Board voted unanimously to approve the purchase of gasoline and diesel fuel from Frost Oil Company.
The Board voted unanimously to accept bids for purchases of sand, concrete, aggregates,and asphalt products from APAC-Central, Mid-Continent Concrete, and River Valley Quarries. Because mistakes were made in uploading the bids for potential vendors for those products that resulted in the wrong vendors being selected and approved at the 12-14-21 Board meeting, the Board had to vote again at the the 2-1-22 meeting to accept bids from the correct providers based on the correct bid information.
