Now that Alexander has failed twice to receive a grant for new
playground equipment in the City Park, Mayor Crystal Herrmann has
decided the city will have to dip into the Park and Recreation Fund
if the playground is ever going to be updated. The second attempt was
made in June of 2024, but this time Alexander tried using the
expertise provided by the Arkansas Community and Economic Development
Program. In 2024 the city council established the Central Arkansas
Planning and Development District as grants administrator for the
city.
Alexander first applied for a FUN Park grant in 2023 and met all the
criteria to receive the grant, scoring 32 out of 32 points.
Unfortunately, Alexander was not at the top of the list when it came
time to disburse the limited funds. Herrmann told council members at
the time only five grant requests were approved. Apparently,
history has repeated itself.
The FUN Park grant is provided by the Arkansas Department of Parks,
Heritage and Tourism. The grant funds 100-percent of a project with
no matching funds provided by the city.
“I'm going to sit down this next week and I'm going to go through
the budget,” Herrmann said at the February 25 meeting. “I was
going to lay out a couple of things that maybe we could get a couple
of pieces [of playground equipment] that [will] move [us] forward
without a grant.”
According to the financial report for the end of January, 2025 the
park fund had a total of $205,011.60. The Park and Recreation Fund
receives two-eighths-cent (or one-quarter-cent) from one of the three
one-cent city sales and use taxes approved by voters in three
separate referendums.
On the bright side, the walking trail is under construction. The
1/8-mile trail winds through the playground in the City Park.
 |
| Trail outlined in black lines. |
In June, 2024 the City of Alexander was awarded a $96,990 grant to
fund the six-foot wide trail, benches and engineering design. The
grant covers 100-percent of the cost of the trail.
Funding for the grant program was acquired from Arkansas's Tobacco
Settlement Fund and funneled through the Arkansas Department of Parks
and Tourism. This is part of reviving the Great Strides program,
which was stopped in 2017.
For those of you who drive Brookwood Road you may have noticed a
change and a new addition. The guardrail on one side of the S-Curve
that crosses Crooked Creek has been repaired, again. Another
guardrail has been added along Brookwood Road as it turns to cross
the railroad tracks. Vehicles have been known to drop head first into
the creek after crossing the tracks when the road surface is slick.
“At this point, I think all of the [police] officers will be
advised that that (guardrail) is city property damage and that there
should be a ticket issued,” Herrmann said. “So we can actually
get the very expensive guardrail replaced by the person's insurance.”
2024 Budget Amended
Under New Business council members approved a resolution that puts
the finishing touches to the 2024 Budget. With final numbers
available the resolution provided 11 pages of changes to budget line
items. The changes resulted in amending the final budgeted revenue
and expenditures and actual revenue and expenditures. Included are
the account balances provided at the January meeting for the end of
2024.
General Fund
Budgeted Revenue - $1,251,251.00
Actual Revenue- $3,194,413.25
Budgeted Expenditures - $1,010,785.00
Actual Expenditures - $723,430.33
End 2024 Account Balance - $2,275,005.94
Police Fund
Budgeted Revenue - $925,650.00
Actual Revenue - $828,665.37
Budgeted Expenditures - $946,523.00
Actual Expenditures - $827,124.33
End 2024 Account Balance - $190,932.74
Fire Fund
Budgeted Revenue - $1,007,750.00
Actual Revenue - $1,114,678.22
Budgeted Expenditures - $1,006,892.43
Actual Expenditures - $961,311.57
End 2024 Account Balance - $410,104.13
Street Fund
Budgeted Revenue - $298,200.00
Actual Revenue - $342,116.35
Budgeted Expenditures - $295,830.00
Actual Expenditures - $264,257.37
End 2024 Account Balance - $154,230.37
Parks Fund
Budgeted Revenue - $256,050.00
Actual Revenue - $236,301.07
Budgeted Expenditures - $255,380.00
Actual Expenditures - $202,963.64
End 2024 Account Balance - $206,656.88
Organization
rules adopted
Alexander
council members approved a second
resolution adopting The
Organization of City Council 2025. The document is
a set of rules, which controls how council meetings will be
conducted. The document is adopted
annually and
covers the current calendar year.
Also
at the February 25 council meeting:
Reports
from department heads;
Police
Report
Council
members were introduced to the new Police Chief, Timothy Preator.
Preator replaces former Police Chief Robert Burnett who was fired by
Mayor Crystal Herrmann following the Alexander City Council’s
December meeting. Also fired were Assistant Chief Jessica Burnett and
Administrative Sergeant Hobby.
Before
giving the monthly police report Chief Preator introduced the police
officers who were in attendance.
“We
got newly promoted Sergeant Chris Myers,” Preator began. “Some of
y'all will love this one. Newly promoted Sergeant Alan Tires. And we
got the officer of Sergeant Officer Burgess, Officer Shaw, Officer
Frisbee.”
“We have two new people that are going to
start on the third,” he continued. “There will be Amy Lockaby and
Melissa Strick, a stringer that comes out of Darlin County.
“Last
month we answered 135 calls for service,” Preator said as he began
the monthly report. “Out of those 135 calls we did 32 reports, 78
traffic stops, 43 citations issued, 35 warnings, six warrants served,
three DWI arrests, one felony arrest, six misdemeanor arrests, and we
did 1,055 extra patrols to the city to make sure that we were seen.”
Fire
Report
Fire
Chief Ryan McCormick provided a brief monthly report on fire calls
and then moved on to the latest training sessions. Also, Alexander
is now part of a Saline County urban-search team.
“We
ran 78 emergency fire calls throughout the past month (January),”
McCormick said. “Next month, we have some additional house training
that we're doing,” on “road rescue training or advanced
rescue.”
Alexander Fire and Rescue, and two other
departments, will form, “[A]n urban search team for … specialized
type of incidents such as trench rescues, water rescues, road
rescues,” McCormick added.
Alexander
is also training for situations involving hazardous materials.
“[A]
part of our training was to sit out on the interstate ... off the
side of the road with our fire truck and look at what type of ...
materials that come up and down the interstate,” McCormick said.
“The placards that are on the 18-wheelers, you would never
understand what type of hazardous materials that are traveling up and
down the road every day, not just that but also on the railroad.”
Code
Enforcement and Animal Control Report
Alexander
Council Members were able to meet the new Code Enforcement and Animal
Control Officer Jamie Jordan. She was hired in January but was
unavailable to attend that month’s meeting.
Jordan
says she’s learning the ordinances, learning the streets and trying
to deal with the easy cleanup problems. She’s also making a list of
the larger cleanup issues.
“Started
issuing out some red tags,” Jordan said. [I’m] “kind of trying
to get some of the easy clean up stuff cleaned up, [and] responded to
some dog calls.”
Jordan
said she’s looking for “some training opportunities” and is
talking to officials in the larger cities like Little Rock and Bryant
to learn from them.
“We
put together an enforcement control Facebook page to kind of help
educate the community on leash laws and overall ordinances” and
required permits, Jordan said.
One
business was found operating without a privilege license.
January
Financial Report
City
Treasurer Jennifer Hill provided a summary of end of January account
balances.
“[Y]our
General Fund is at $1,422,273.05 cents,” she began. “Your Police
Fund is at $116,887.54 cents. Your fire is at $300,378.78 cents.
Parks is at $205,011.60 cents. Your streets are at $232,856.45
cents.”
Mayor’s
Report
Inspection
of former hospital takes another step
Alexander
is one step closer to applying for a grant to either remove any
hazardous materials from the former hospital at the closed Alexander
Human Development Center (HDC), or raze the building. Be it a small
step.
Mayor
Crystal Herrmann has been attempting to acquire a Brownfield grant in
order to make the HDC property safe for development. The grant
program is funded by the EPA.
Herrmann
said officials with the Central Arkansas Development District (CADD)
came out on the 20th (February), “[A]nd did their first
site assessment where they assessed the property and then put ...
their work plan together for doing all the testing and the
inspections.”
In
2024 the Alexander Council approved giving the CADD temporary
ownership of the hospital. CADD has the required credentials, a
municipality does not have, to conduct the testing needed to proceed
with the grant request.
Herrmann
said, “We have started seeing movement.”
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." The expectation is the hospital building
contains asbestos, lead paint and potentially other unknown hazards.
The
HDC property, along Highway 111, was originally built as a
tuberculosis sanitarium for African-Americans. Eventually it was
converted into a home for adults with special needs that required
care and training from professionals.
When
the Arkansas Department of Human Services no longer had a use for the
property, and no other state agency had a use for it, it was deeded
to Alexander in 2018. Under state law the property could not be sold
to an individual. It could only be taken over by another government
entity such as a municipality or county.
Metroplan offers grant to convert street lights to LED
Mayor
Herrmann reported on a grant program offered by Metroplan that will
pay to convert Alexander’s street lights from the current bulbs
being used to LEDs. Street lights are installed, maintained and
powered by Entergy.
“It
would be a $12,000 a year savings if we get this grant,” Herrmann
said. “And our city will be a lot brighter.”
Next Meeting
The next meeting of the Alexander City Council is Monday, March 17,
at 6:00 pm in the courtroom of the Alexander Municipal Complex (City
Hall). Meetings are open to the public.
