Hope City Board
The Hope City Board met in the City Hall boardroom on Tuesday for their first meeting of August. The meeting was well-attended as there was a public hearing about the Arkansas Community Economic Development Program – Community Development Block grant. When asked what the city should apply for there were two speakers who made requests. One of them was Eddie Garcia asking for a program to teach people how to parent. Marsha White spoke on the need for affordable housing.
The decision was made to apply for dredging the east and west wastewater treatment ponds.
The city board covered the remediation of the landfill which has an issue of material leaching into the wells. The regulations have changed and the city is doing its best to keep up with the current regulations and is looking for funding for the project
The city board declared a dump truck surplus and gave authorization for it’s sale
After the expression of concern from the mayor about there only being one bidder, the city board waived the requirement for a competitive bid for fuel farm repairs at the airport. No local companies do the work and only one company has responded to the request for bids. This company is based in the Houston area.
For the City Manager’s report, J.R. Wilson talked about having a contract with Weyerhauser but needing to pass a resolution to make it legal. Randy Wright had a resolution to enter into the contract. Steve Montgomery made a motion to approve it which was seconded and passed.
An amount of $850,000 from Weyerhauser would flow into a city account. Wilson talked about how this could be put into a CD for 6 months in order to earn interest.
Mark Ross talked about all the yard debris and yard art in town and a way of penalizing that. City Manager Wilson said code enforcement should be called to see if the individual is out of compliance. There could be a date it has to be corrected by with a court date. If it is corrected in time, penalties would be dropped. If not they would need to go before the judge.
Signs are not allowed on city poles or city boxes.
The route for the watermelon festival was mentioned.
Thursday August 3rd will be the last Big Sounds Downtown in the Klipsch City Hall Auditorium with two bands playing and air conditioning.
For Citizen’s Requests, Ed Flagg who is a Lion, Scoutmaster and an Engineer wanted permission to do work on Fair Park on the west side of the Coliseum where the fish fry stand is and help with the foundation. He mentioned an alteration of the entrance to minimize air conditioning loss and make it easier to enter.
A motion was made which passed to allow him to do the work.
The meeting adjourned.