Hope City Board

The Hope City Board met in the Boardroom at City Hall on Tuesday July 18th. The meeting was packed with people standing in the hallway outside the room. After the invocation and the pledge the board skipped to the topic of the loan approved by the ARNC from the clean water state fund. This was for wastewater management. There was a motion to approve acceptance of the loan Mark Ross, which was seconded and passed

The meeting moved on to the application for outdoor recreational grant with three different proposals, ranging from 1,800 square feet to 5,000 square feet with the price range of $165,000 up to $295,000.

There was the question of whether the Splash pad was expandable with the response that it could be depending upon the design.

There was a motion to apply by Dr. Coffee which was seconded and passed.

The next topic was the sealed bids for fencing the airport. This was already approved by the board but the spending went over the cap and a few more items were bundled in with it. There was a motion to approve the Nichols fencing bid which was the lower of the two by Dr. Coffee, which was seconded and passed.

For the FEMA building October 20th is the date that the covering has to be removed. This should be done by the company which has made the bid. There was a motion to accept the bid by Kiffanea Talley, which was seconded and passed

The timber from the airport has been adjusted to include all available timber.  The recommendation to the board was a mixture of prices offered by the bidding companies that with an estimate by the city as to how how much of the wood was each type. The conclusion was that Weyerhauser offered the best return.

There were representatives from both Axiom Timber Industries and Weyerhauser. Taylor Watson from Axiom came from Arkadelphia in order to speak to the board. He stated they wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t so close and stated  the numbers which the city guessed at were kept confidential as it was a competitive process.

The city saw it differently with no company being able to gain a competitive advantage by the numbers becoming public

The city guessed they had mostly pine saw timber. Mike Williams from Weyerhauser confirmed the city’s estimate saying that 85-90 percent of the timber was pine saw timber. He stated it would be a two-year contract with an option to extend, which would only be used if weather impeded the process as the intent would be to complete within the two-year time frame.

The question was raised if the whole area would be replanted or just some of it. Darrell stated that he would pull in another 200 or 300 acres and make the planting more even.

The question was raised about whether the debris would be scooped up and burned or scattered to decompose. Williams responded it could be done either way depending upon the customer’s desire.

There was a motion by Talley to accept the recommendation, which was seconded and passed.

The statement was made that the financial numbers look good for this time of year. The expenses are a little over but the revenues are also a little higher. There was a suggestion the financial statements only get looked at every other month.

There were a couple of proposed ordinance rezoning requests. One would allow the owner to build a storage facility on their property. The other to build a car lot on her property. Both ordinances passed.

City Manager Wilson talked about the request to block a street for a couple of hours on October 2nd in order to honor James Harvey Betts. Businesses will be notified if the request is accepted.

There will be a city-wide cleanup on Saturday.

The police had a third year long accreditation process and passed with flying colors.

There was a citizen’s request by Marsha White to reschedule the cleanup.

The meeting then adjourned.