An old topic, concerning how much rent employees should pay to live in the city owned cottages, has resurfaced. What started out as a way to provide low cost security for the former Alexander Human Development Center (HDC) property and give city employees a way to live in Alexander without a major cost to them, may take another hit on the perks side of the original agreement.
The plan was first adopted when former Mayor Paul Mitchell was in office. In 2022 the former HDC property was being vandalized after Pathfinders, Inc. moved to a new location outside Alexander. Pathfinders provided specialized services to those with physical and mental needs. The cottages were used to house the patients. They are located in the southeast corner of the property along Highway 111.
With no one on the property at night, vandalism began to become an expensive problem. Mitchell decided it would be beneficial to allow city employees, who live outside Alexander, to live in the cottages in exchange for providing both security and keeping the grass mowed. At the time, no city employees lived in Alexander.
Those living in the cottages generally worked for either the street or police departments. This arrangement provided the extra advantage of having city employees nearby in case of emergencies,
With the election of the new mayor, Crystal Herrmann, a change to the lease agreement was offered at the end of 2023. The amendment involved occupants paying the gas and electric bills and being charged $1.00 per year rent. The new Cottage User Agreement was adopted September 16, 2024.
The latest proposed change will increase the $1.00 annual fee to $100.00 per month. Herrmann says this proposal is made at the suggestion of state auditors after conducting the annual Arkansas Legislative Audit for 2023.
City Attorney Chris Madison is concerned that it may not be as easy as picking a dollar amount and raising the rent.
“My concern relates to whether this is taxable income,” Madison began. “So it costs me $500 a month to live in 1,000 square [feet] of a manufactured house, but if I'm an employee of the city, I can live in 1,000 square foot of cottage for $100 a month. That means I'm getting a $400 a month benefit.”
After pointing out to council members he considered this a problem the first time around he said, “So the key issue for me is to make sure that if there is a tax consequence for it, that it's recognized on the front end for a resident as well as on the city. If there's a way that we can minimize or eliminate or reduce the tax consequences, then cool, that's what we need to do.”
Herrmann said it’s been difficult to get an opinion at the state level. It seems all of the certified public accounts (CPA) are busy. The council decided to table the new agreement to give the mayor another month to find a CPA who can answer this question.
Other action items at the September 15 meeting
Saline County/Alexander Hazard Mitigation policies adopted
The plan was first adopted in October, 2017. Mayor Herrmann said it must be renewed every three years.
Alexander to sell lot
The lot is approximately 59-feet by 180-feet (0.24 GIS acre), a similar size and shape of the other two lots. While one of the end parcels abuts Vine Street, the remaining two parcels, including the city’s, are landlocked with no access to a street or alley.
Most of the parcel is located in Saline County with one corner in Pulaski County. According to Saline County records Alexander acquired the property May 20, 2002.
The property owner, who contacted the Mayor, is Tommy Madison. His property faces E. Third Street (Hwy. 111). The parcel owned by the city abuts his backyard. According to Saline County records the parcels on either side of the city lot are owned by Edna M. Dickerson.
Herrmann said she explained to Madison she would first need approval from the council. Then, the parcel would have to be advertised that it’s for sale. She also explained the steps needing to be followed.
“But, I will also have to go through getting this surveyed and then get market value, the appropriate value for property, before we could post it for sale,” Herrmann said.
Council members approved a motion giving Herrmann permission to have the parcel surveyed and appraised in preparation to be sold.
Department reports
City truck washed away
“In the flood, we've lost one of the street trucks,” Herrmann said. “It was swept into the flood waters. We have received the insurance check warrant of $20,000.”
Herrmann said she will be taking bids to replace the truck. She also plans on making an inventory of trucks including models and mileage.
Police concentrate on early morning speeders
“August numbers, we had 174 calls for service,” Preator began. “Forty-Eight of those were reportable.”
When it comes to morning speeders, when school busses are traveling through North Alexander, Preator said the worst areas are Second and Forth streets.
“I know I personally made over 80 traffic stops in a week,” he said. But, we're just on 4th street.”
“And I mean, like, literally, I stay on the side of the road” Preator explained. “I don't hide. My vehicle is sitting there. I stand on the side of the road with the right arm gun in my hand in the wide open and make traffic stops.”
“It's like nobody registers in their head that these kids are out here at these bus stops,” Preator said. “And I'll be damned if I wait until one of them gets ran over before we start making a change.”
Trek Tech comes to police work
Preator said the device is being offered as part of an upgrade to the department’s body camera system. It will detect 56 different languages.
“This thing is legit,” Preator said. “I'm on a free trial right now to the end of November.”
Explaining how it works Preator said, “I can click this thing and tell it to translate to Spanish and I can start talking and it's going to say everything that I say, is going to put it in Spanish to the person I'm talking (to).”
It will then take the verbal response from the individual and translate it into English.
Preator said the cost for three years is $3,600.00 per year. He added it will be included in the 2026 budget.
9/11 Memorial, Activity report, Inspections and Water Outage
McCormick said, “I was proud to be able to send six members to a conference locally that represents the 9/11 and what has occurred.”
According to McCormick the department has racked-up 340 hours of training. Also, the department was dispatched to 62 incidents in the past month.
In their spare time they’ve been inspecting businesses for safety violations.
“We're going to each individual business and we're just inspecting it versus showing, showcasing what's wrong with it,” McCormick said. “We find a violation, and then we give them another year to make (changes).”
In the future the first half of September, 2025, in South Alexander, may be referred to as the time without water. A crew laying optic cable for AT&T was constantly cutting the waterline, even though it had been located and marked. McCormick noted the outages could have been a disaster if there had been a fire.
“We have had many days and hours of no water in our city,” McCormick began. “Water for your homes, water for in the fire hydrant, all that kind of stuff.”
One day the crew managed to cause four breaks in four hours.
“We had one day where we were out,” McCormick said. “The construction companies, they (sic) did four different times within four hours, and we were out for most of the day. ... There was no water in the city. If we had a fire, we would have to be requesting additional tankers from outside our area and also additional resources.”
After calling everyone involved to a quick meeting the construction crew offered a solution they could have been using from the beginning.
“They had a better way of trying to locate some of the water lines that they were hitting as they were boring,” McCormick explained. “They weren't using it. So they started to use it, and I don't believe. We haven't had a water main break since.”
Junk yards, silt and a place for animals
“And, I continue to hand out warnings for new violations, same things, just getting a place that is trash,” Dodson said. “There's a lot of houses and properties around here that have, that look like a car lot that has been ran (sic) since the 90s.”
Dodson said he is monitoring construction sites for having and maintaining silt fences.
“People not having their silt fences up on construction sites (causes) claying, construction debris coming into the streets, into the storm water drainage system,” Dodson said. “It's clogging the ditches, it's clogging the culverts.”
Dodson is still researching the costs and options to allow the city to operate its own animal shelter.
Dodson said he is looking into, “[S]helter pricing, what it would take to run our own, how much that would be, and there's a building we can use that we already have, how much a new building would be, and other options.”
Financial Report
“For August, your general fund had $1,855,525.52,” Hill began. “Your police fund has $83,729.07. Your fire is at $350,634.66. The park is at $257,701.01. Streets is at $310,897.62. Payroll is at $37,294.08. And your events (fund) is at $195.40.”
“The SUT, the sales and use tax this month, they were all the same,” Hill said. “They were $71,387.42 for a total of $214,162.27.”
Storm damaged roofs
“The adjusters came out and I guess because all of the storms and the storm season, it has taken them a very long time,” Herrmann said. “They finally got back with us and sent us a check for the roofs. Let's say we were talking six roofs, six roofs, they sent us $14,000. Which won't even touch a fraction of the roofs that we need to do repairs on.”
“Meanwhile, I am collecting multiple quotes which we would need anyways,” she continued. “Once I get all those gathered up, I am going to send that back over to the adjuster and see if they will revisit, uh, the amount of funds that they had sent us for the repairs.”
Herrmann said, “I think a couple of the cottages wouldn't even be considered because the age of the roof, the depreciation was so bad. ... I mean at some point they're not going to cover it. … But on the little community center I don't, I don't see that.”
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