Editor's Note: Portions of this article may contain what could appear to be commentary by the reporter.
The Alexander City Council approved establishing a "Franchise Fee Revenue Note" in the amount of $511,607.00 to be used to purchase a new fire truck. The "Note" will allow the city to receive a 10-year "Loan" from First Security Bank at an interest rate of 5.95-percent per annum.
Alexander is using the annual franchise fee, received from Entergy, essentially as collateral to guarantee the annual payment. The first payment isn't due until August, 2024. The final maturity date is August 16, 2033.
The annual payments will actually come from two sources. One is the ACT 833 funds, which the State gives to fire departments annually to buy equipment they may not be able to afford normally. Last year the amount received by Alexander was $26,754.00. The second source, according to Fire Chief Ryan McCormick, will be funds not spent to repair the old fire trucks.
"Between 2020 and 2022, we spent $252,000.00 on general maintenance of our firetrucks," McCormick said at a special council meeting held June 5. "Just last year, we spent $135,000, ... on just maintenance and trying to keep our fire trucks moving."
At the regular July 17 council meeting McCormick told council members he's already saving up to make the first payment due in 2024. The annual payments were originally estimated at around $74,000.00.
The loan is less than the purchase price of the fire truck. The actual cost of the demo 2023 E-One Rescue Pumper is $582,607.00. One of the fire trucks has already been sold for $90,000.00. After deducting the 10-percent dealer's fee that left $81,000.00 as a down payment, reducing the purchase price of the truck to $501,607.00.
The truck comes without hoses and other necessary equipment. Those needed items will be cannibalized from the other remaining fire truck, which will be sold later.
The Process:
The method being employed now is state law based on Amendment-65. This amendment allows for the issuance of bonds with a longer time period of repayment.
Essentially state law requires two steps. First there must be a public hearing advertised "in a newspaper of general circulation" within the city. After the public hearing the ordinance can be read and approved.
Unless you are an avid reader of the legal section of the paper version of the Saline Courier, or you were told by someone who knew the public hearing would be held during the city council's regular July meeting, you were the only persons who were aware of the scheduled public hearing.
The hearing was not listed on the agenda, which was sent out prior to the meeting. That portion of the agenda was listed as, "Finalization of Loan for Fire Truck."
Since Council Member Joy Gray is responsible for writing the agenda, she obviously wasn't told about the public hearing. Which means everyone being sent the agenda, including council members and The Alexandrian, didn't know about the public hearing.
Council members learned about the public hearing after being told by Attorney John Bryant. Bryant is with the law firm Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard, P.L.L.C. of Little Rock, who was hired as the bond counsel.
No one on the council made a motion to add the public hearing to the agenda. Instead, there was a motion, a second and a voice vote to go out of the regular meeting and begin the public hearing. After its conclusion there was a motion, a second and voice vote to end the public hearing and return to the regular meeting.
The council then proceeded to vote on the ordinance, which authorizes the issuance of a "Revenue Note." Under state law it is required an ordinance be read completely at the first of the three required public meetings. At the second and third meetings the ordinance can be read by title if approved by the council. The second and third readings can also be suspended following the first reading, if approved by a two-thirds vote of the council.
That's not exactly what happened. There was not a full reading of the five-page ordinance. Instead, Gray made a motion to approve the ordinance with the title, "AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE OF $511,607 CITY OF ALEXANDER, ARKANSAS FRANCHISE FEE REVENUE NOTE, SERIES 2023 FOR THE PURPOSE OF FINANCING THE COST OF ACQUIRING AND EQUIPPING A FIRE TRUCK FOR USE BY THE CITY’S FIRE DEPARTMENT AND PAYING COSTS INCIDENTAL THERETO; PROVIDING FOR THE SECURITY FOR AND THE PAYMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL OF AND INTEREST ON THE NOTE; PRESCRIBING OTHER MATTERS RELATING THERETO; AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY," included in the motion. She then made two separate motions to suspend the second and third readings. Both of those passed with the required two-thirds vote. She then made a motion to accept the Emergency Clause, without reading it out loud. That also passed by the required two-thirds vote.
Fortunately, there were six of the eight council members present, which made the two-thirds necessary to perform the legal gymnastics required to get all of this done in one meeting. Council members present were Joy Gray, Gina Thomas Littlejohn, Joe Pollard, Mitchell W. Smith, Harold Timmerman, and Juanita Wilson. Absent were Angela Griffin and Tony Staton.
Apparently, Alexander now owns a new fire truck.
Other actions at the regular July meeting were:
Another park grant
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Alexander Park Trail Site Plan |
The estimated cost is $89,040.00. The cost includes the six-foot wide trail, benches and engineering design. The grant will cover 100-percent of the cost.
The resolution was approved by a unanimous voice vote without being read. It was then read to the assembled masses by City Recorder Sharon Bankhead. Then, it was voted on a second time and passed again.
This is the second grant application involving the park. The first will replace the aging playground equipment.
Council Member Joy Gray works for the state and explained that while she does dispense the money for this grant, she is not part of the decision-making process.
"I'm just the dispenser of the funds to the State Parks and Tourism Program," Gray said. "So I oversee the tobacco funds. Tobacco funds are funding this project and then they will go to, I dispense the funds to the parks, but I'm not on the selection committee. I don't have anything to do with that, but I want to be transparent that I'm the fiduciary starting point for the money. But once it leaves my hands, I don't have any decision-making process on that."
Saline County Detention Cost Sharing Agreement estimates
Police Department Report
"We'll say the 4th of July went over better this year than it has in many, many years," Burnett said. "Kind of took a new strategy. Added a lot more patrols."
Burnett reported, "321 citations issued. That's also with warnings and warrants included in that. The court brought in about 33,000 (dollars)."
Fire Department Report
"So
we only lost, that failed about 400 feet and we have extra in order
to take care of the stuff that failed," he continued. "So,
we still have one more, another 3,000 feet to do. And, we'll be
working on that coming up the next week to finish all of
that."
Ending his report McCormick said, "We'll also start on our hires and start testing hires."
Streets and Parks Department Report
Obviously the weather has kept paving crews from starting on the overlay project of selected city streets. Anyone driving around the city has noticed culverts being replaced in preparation for them to be repaved.
Financial Report
History Lesson:
Mayor's Report
"There's a group clinic for the Medicaid/Medicare changes that are coming," Herrmann said. "We are scheduled to have a clinic for August 29th."
"I will update the public with narrow down times on it's a walk-in clinic," she continued. "So if anybody is on these programs and they have the changes, they don't understand the changes, then there will be assistance here and they can assist and walk people through the system changing."
"They said it's pretty radical and it's going to affect a lot of people," Herrmann said. "The air conditioner is out at the community center. So we will be holding it here (city hall) on August 29th. They're supposed to send some documentations and posters so I'll be shooting that out on my Facebook and to the public."
* Alexander is next inline for the Saline County Library Book Walk.
"We're waiting in line behind the East End Park," she said. "Once the book walk is complete there, they'll move it to our city park. I'll post it as well when it gets out there."
* "I also have very exciting news," Herrmann announced. "We do qualify for the Brownfields Grant as far as the Human Development Center (Former Hospital Building). We will be working on phase one."
"We have an application that we're filling out," she continued. "Police Chief (Robert Burnett) helped me work on that today. He actually, he worked there some years ago, 20-something years ago. So he was able to help me fill in some voids."
"We'll get that sent off. Once we get an acceptance letter back, they'll come in and do a full assessment. And then they'll give us a report and let us know where we're at with the hazards."
"So they'll check the asbestos and mold and all of that," Herrmann said. "And apparently there's some tanks and stuff out on the property as well that they'll have to investigate as far as hazardous disposal."
"So it's pretty exciting," she said. "It'll be a long process, but it'll be good for the city."
The grant program is funded by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to the EPA website, "A brownfield is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant."
* Herrmann then moved on to animal control.
"Police chief and I have been working with," Herrmann began. "We might have a proposal next council meeting for maybe the dog solution with some animal control."
"We're hoping to put a decent package together for y 'all's review and hopefully we can take deep consideration in it," she said. "I know it's something that we struggle with. We get a lot of calls on."
"I went to the regional animal control board meeting this previous week," Herrmann said. "And it is a slow go. It is in the start of things. They don't even have a property picked out."
"They're not 100% sure what city it's going to be in or how it's going to work. So they started a board for working through all those details. So it could be five, six years before regional animal control shelters built."
"So I think now's a good time for us to at least move on to see if we can come up with a good package to take care of ourselves until something might come up that would benefit the city as a group with the county," she concluded.
Next Meeting
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