Highlights of the Fort Smith Board of Directors Meeting 9/20/22
The Fort Smith Board of Directors Meeting held 9-20-22 started with discussion on a proposed ordinance change to move Town Hall meetings that have been being held immediately following the regular meeting every first regular meeting of the month to 6pm every first regular board meeting of the month. This proposed change to before the regular meeting instead of after it is intended to eliminate the need for citizens wishing to speak at the Town Hall to sit and wait through the entire meeting first. Each citizen who signs up to speak at the Town Hall would be allotted 5 minutes to address the Board about any issue not on the agenda.
City Clerk Gard recommended that if the Town Hall meetings were moved that the regular meetings also have a set time to begin (for example if the Town Halls are scheduled at 6pm, the regular meetings would be scheduled for 6:30 pm). This would eliminate worries about the television start time as well as the required times to be announced for the start of public meetings. Director Dawson mentioned that the participation at Town Halls is “not a lot very often” and suggested starting regular meetings at 6:15. Director Morton spoke of his interest in reducing the “hardship on people to wait” until after long meetings to speak .
Gard reminded of the history of the Town Halls, with there having previously been a Citizens’ Forum agenda section at the beginning of meetings but that that was done away with when meetings became televised in response to some citizens wanting to address the board but that did not want to be on TV and the Citizens’ Forum agenda section was replaced by the Town Hall meetings. Director Settle shared his memory of the sometimes unruly nature of some of those Citizens’ Forums before the Town Halls were instituted including people singing songs, throwing footballs, and yelling and screaming at the Board. He expressed his desire for the meetings to continue to present a “very professional board” rather than a “circus show”. He spoke of the importance of Board of Directors meetings being businesslike in conveying a positive representation of the city to people outside of the city. He suggested moving the Town Hall meetings to before a study session instead of after a regular meeting, with the Town Hall scheduled for 6 and the meeting for 6:15, so that the Town Hall would not potentially disrupt the handling of business in a regular meeting. Director Martin voiced his support for moving the Town Halls earlier citing his desire to remove the “burden on citizens” of waiting, especially on meetings where there is also an executive session to have to wait on so that they may have to wait till 10pm to speak and that it is possible that that late after such a lengthy meeting the Town Hall issues may not get the focus they deserve. As to the sometimes circus atmosphere of the past Citizens’ Forums, he said that he felt today and in the future there might be the “occasional issue, but by and large” there would be “good quality discussion and quality issues brought to the Board.” Director Catsavis expressed his view that when the meeting is held doesn’t prevent unprofessional behaviors, that whatever people want to do,they could do it at the beginning or at the end of the meeting,too. Catsavis expressed concern that starting the Town Hall at 6 and the meeting at 6:15 would only allow for a maximum of 3 speakers saying “I think people when they come to talk they should have the right to talk”. Director Dawson supported moving the Town Hall to before a study session. Gard clarified that the study sessions are streamed on the internet but not live on the television access channel.
Director Rego suggested moving away from having a separate formally called meeting for the citizen input and rather having a citizen’s forum section of the meeting to allow for flexibility to hear them all if a lot of speakers show up and flexibility to move along and begin the meeting if few or none show up. He expressed that televised or not there was still opportunity to make mischief, but that there are more outlets now for the people who want to be outrageous than just the cable access broadcast so that may be less of an issue today than it was in 2012. He said he was comfortable with the citizen input portion just being a televised part at the beginning of a meeting.
Director Good added that in addition to the citizens and the Board, the staff has to stay later when the Town Hall is at the end of the meeting. He said that it is “good to get them up front” but mentioned the high number of citizens participating in Town Halls that have discussed their issue with the Board members individually already and the low number of participants and called the Town Halls “pretty good the way they are”. He agreed with Director Settle in his desire to “maintain this image of taking care of business”. He also mentioned that starting the regular meeting at 6:15 could run into a time space problem especially when considering the back and forth discussion on the issues. Administrator Geffken said “2012 is much different in terms of making your opinions known than today”. Mayor McGill said that having the Town Hall before a study session is more flexible and lends itself to discussions.
Director Settle motioned to table the issue and instead add it to the study session discussion about the planning for the 2023 city calendar and pass the decisions as a part of the voting on the city calendar. That study session will be November 10,2022. The Board voted unanimously to table the issue and deal with it together with the city calendar instead of voting on it separately tonight.
The Board voted unanimously to approve the allocation plan required by the federal government for the $1,501,450 in federal funds that Fort Smith is to receive through the American Rescue Plan HOME investment partnership program to be used for programs that reduce or prevent homelessness including tenant based rental assistance, development of affordable housing, supportive services, and acquisition or development of non-congregate shelter units. The allocation plan calls for $255,246 to go to supportive services, $1,020,987 to go to affordable rental housing, and $225,217 to go to administration and planning. The allocation plan will be submitted to the federal government and then specific proposals can be taken for projects and approved by the Board to receive their share of the funds.
Director Martin mentioned the several recent meetings and community discussions concerning homelessness and that there has been a 15% increase in homelessness in Fort Smith this year. He said “I wanna make sure where this money gets allocated it’s solving or working to solve the problem” and that he wants the money to be spent on programs that lead to sustainable self-sufficiency “not just keeping folks in that cycle of homelessness”.
The Board voted unanimously to approve changes to the city’s Fiscal Policy that would allow for engaging an investment manager to actively manage the City’s cash and investment pool to expand the permitted investments to the maximum allowed by State law. Finance Director Richards said that cities of Fort Smith’s size are allowed by law to use the same investments as a state chartered bank. He expressed a desire to take advantage of interest rates to get a better rate of return and to modernize the policies saying that the current policy “hasn’t been up to date for a while”. He said the plan would be “focused on maintaining safety first, liquidity second, and yield third”.
Director Catsavis expressed feeling leery about investing and asked who would oversee the investments. Richards responded that the city would contract with a firm well-versed in investing for governments and that all of the investments would be ones that are 100% guaranteed by the US government. He said the City would also set guidelines for what is appropriate and the firm would not be executing investments the City had no intention of ever investing in. Director Catsavis inquired whether the money could be taken out if there were economic problems and the tax revenues went down. Geffkin answered that yes, maturities would be staggered so that money could be made available quickly (much of it in as little as 3-6 months) if needed.
Director Good expressed concern about investing and taking a risk with money that could be used for projects and needs now. Richards assured that the majority of permitted financial instruments are 100% backed by the US government and that a revolving set of certain amounts maturing regularly will result in always having liquidity for needs. He called the investments “about as risk free as you can get”.
Administrator Geffken said that the city is currently getting 1.5% on their investments “if we’re lucky”. Director Morton mentioned that 2 Year US Treasuries are currently offering 3.96% interest and that there’s a possibility of making 3% on CDs. He called the changes a “great opportunity. Nothing safer in the world than the US treasury” and an “excellent move by the administration.” He said he “doesn’t see how you could argue with a 100% insured instrument”.
Director Martin mentioned that the proposed investments are different than the higher risk investing he does in his personal retirement plan, that he’s looking for 12-15% on that, but that is “not what we’re shooting for here.”
Director Settle suggested an ordinance that would cap a maximum amount the city is willing to invest.
Director Morton said that the plan is not doing anything different or taking more risk, just getting more for the money. Director Rego called the proposal an “update and professionalization of policies and practices we’ve been doing for a long time.” Richards added that the city already has $15 million invested mostly in treasury bills and money market funds currently and that there is typically $90-130 million sitting in a .05%-1% savings account. He said bank fees often are more than the interest earnings on the savings account. Director Settle pointed out that money cannot be moved to cover consent decree projects and that it is not like the account is just a “pool of money to play with”.
The investment reporting would also go to being included in the quarterly report to the Board instead of monthly.
The Board passed the changes to the fiscal policy with all but Catsavis voting in favor of the changes.
The Board voted unanimously to waive health, dental, and vision insurance premiums for the City employees during the month of December. This proposal was in response to the $6.3 million in the Health and Wellness account exceeding the $4.3-$4.5 million predicted to be needed for insurance costs. Waiving the premium payments for the month of December will cause a total of $238,000 to not be paid in. The savings is intended to serve as a “Christmas Bonus” to the employees who have done a good job of not spending the money in the account.
The Board voted unanimously to award one time bonuses to city employees in recognition for their hard work during the Covid 19 pandemic. The bonuses will be $2500 to full-time Police and Fire employees, $1500 to other regular full-time non-uniformed employees, and $750 to part-time employees. The total cost will be $1.63 million. At last week’s study session meeting Finance Director Richards explained how though it is not technically being paid for directly with American Rescue Plan funds, it is effectively being reimbursed that way via budget shuffling. So it would not cost the City any additional budget money.
Inspired by the approval of a bid to pay Time Striping for some street striping, Director Settle suggested that the City consider the Street Department starting to conduct their own striping rather than paying outside companies to do it. He cited the success of moving the sidewalk construction program in-house rather than contracting it out.
The Board voted unanimously to accept a bid to purchase a traffic signal communications system from All Service Electric for $235,000. The system would transmit real time traffic data and weather conditions on major traffic corridors. The project would be expected to be completed July 13,2023. Streets Director Meeker clarified that the signal system would allow them to know immediately when there is a problem like a traffic light out and to monitor traffic and do regular re-timings on busy corridors. Director Morton said it “sounds like a really good project”.
The Board voted unanimously to renew a 2003 agreement set to expire in 2023 for an additional 20 years to allow to the US government to continue to use land at the landfill (part of land that was originally gifted to the City by the US government) for a digital airport surveillance radar.
The Board voted unanimously requiring that any time the City is involved in a meeting with the Environmental Protection Agency or Department of Justice (either in person or remotely) concerning the consent decree that the Mayor and one Director be attendance. Director Morton clarified that the requirement would only pertain to organized formal negotiation sessions (not conversations between Utilities Director McAvoy and the EPA regarding interpretation of a particular sentence or other small discussions to clarify things or the Mayor meeting with officials tangential to the issue but not negotiating, etc.). He also clarified that the Mayor and Director would only be involved to observe not to participate. The point would be to watch and listen to “observe the tone” and “understand how the government approaches this”.
Director Martin said that there “needs to be elected representatives in those discussions. End of story.”. He expressed his opinion that maybe the elected officials should not be only observing, but allowed to participate. Director Morton responded that the federal government officials will look only to the experts for commentary.
Director Catsavis asked if this requirement would include participation in meetings over the telephone? Morton answered that yes, all negotiation meetings would be included including telephone, Zoom, and in-person.
Director Settle suggested that the City ask the EPA and DOJ if it’s OK with them for the elected officials to observe. He expressed concerns about the participation of the elected officials making it possibly perceived by some as a public meeting triggering FOIA issues that might upset the EPA and DOJ. He expressed not wanting to upset any of the negotiations. Director Morton said that the city could just plan to do it and that if any statutory or policy objections or adverse consequences or responses present themselves they could just stop it. He said “Elected officials shouldn’t have to ask permission to watch or listen to a meeting if that’s all they do”. City Attorney Canfield said that one Director and the Mayor does not constitute a public meeting and that gathering information has been proven to be a non-FOIA action.
