In 30 seconds
- October spending was $570,000, down from $574,000 in September; operations gained $151,185; citywide claims fell to $3.9 million, down from $4.4 million, with the general fund at $3.2 million, down from $3.6 million.
- Council voted 4-0 to let the mayor apply $2.5 million in DRA/AEDC grants: $2 million for waterline replacement, $500,000 for landfill sewer pumps.
- The city attorney said state law requires a seven-member airport commission, correcting an earlier plan to set it at six by ordinance.
- The mayor introduced a draft city vehicle ordinance following a November 4 executive order; the city attorney said the existing personnel handbook already covers vehicle use and no vote was taken.
- The city will apply for an up-to-$300,000 street overlay grant (deadline first week of December) and holds the first of six town hall meetings this Thursday at 5:30 p.m..
Recap
Finances: Claims Down to $3.9 Million
Treasurer Turner reported October spending of $570,000, down from $574,000 in September, and an operating gain of $151,185 for the month . Claims across the general, street, and landfill funds fell to $3.9 million total, down from $4.4 million; the general fund alone is down to $3.2 million from $3.6 million . The mayor said the coming year's budget will target an aggressive paydown of remaining claims .
Airport Commission: State Law Requires Seven Members
Council reviewed the mayor's nominees to reconstitute the airport commission and discussed setting the board at five, six, or seven members . The city attorney said any change to the board's size has to be set by ordinance, not a vote . Later in the meeting, the city attorney cited state statute (read aloud as "1439 104," with an earlier stumble transcribed as "1459 359 104") requiring seven members, correcting an earlier decision to draft the ordinance at six . The city attorney will bring a draft ordinance to the next meeting.
Water and Landfill: $2.5 Million in Grants
The mayor presented two DRA/AEDC grants: $2 million for waterline replacement in high-need areas and $500,000 for landfill sewer pumps (the transcript captions "landfill" as "landfield" throughout) . A separate NARC loan, already authorized with the mayor as signer, will also fund waterline work . Council voted 4-0 to authorize the mayor to apply the grant funds to these projects .
Six Council Committees Proposed
The mayor and Chief of Staff Kevin Martin-Arnold proposed six council-led committees: community events, public safety, beautification, youth council, outdoor recreation, and economic development . Council members said they support the idea in principle but want more detail, including time commitment and reporting expectations, before committing to lead one. No vote was taken.
Streets and City Vehicles
The city will apply for a street overlay grant of up to $300,000, with a deadline the first week of December (the mayor first said "first weekend in December," then corrected to "first week in December") . The mayor introduced a draft ordinance on city vehicle use, following a November 4 executive order addressing employees using multiple city vehicles and vehicles used outside of work purposes . The city attorney said the existing personnel handbook (section 6.2) and a mayoral directive already cover vehicle use and questioned whether a new ordinance is needed . No vote was taken.
Town Halls Begin This Week
The administration will hold six town hall meetings, two each in Helena, West Helena, and a central location, starting this Thursday at 5:30 p.m. . About 40% of city residents lack access to a vehicle, a factor cited in choosing the sites . A council member said residents will likely ask about lowering the water bill . The city attorney reminded the group the city's Facebook page cannot block or delete citizen comments, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and that council meetings must be video and audio recorded and made public .
The documents
Everything the council had in front of it, summarized. Page stamps open that page in the document desk.
Meeting Agenda
Two-page agenda for the council's regular meeting. Lists call to order, prayer/pledge, roll call, minutes approval, and a treasurer financial update, then opens new business with airport commission nominations and $2,000,000 in DRA assistance for new water lines plus $500,000 for new pumps. New business continues with a six-committee structure for council members (community events, public safety, beautification, youth council, outdoor recreation, economic development), a city street aid project worth up to $300,000, a drafted city vehicle ordinance, a reminder of the November 20 town hall, and notice of an upcoming fiscal year 2026 budget presentation. The document itself is headed "November 4, 2025," but its content (the November 20 town hall reminder, the DRA/AEDC grant items, the committee and vehicle-ordinance items) matches the November 18 meeting recorded in the packet folder and on video; the printed date appears to be a clerical holdover from an earlier draft.
| DRA assistance for new water lines | $2,000,000 | |
| Assistance for new pumps (landfill) | $500,000 | |
| City Street Aid Project assistance | up to $300,000 | |
| Town Hall date/time | November 20, 5:30 PM, PCCUA Community Room |
Meeting Packet
Eleven-page packet of supporting documents for the agenda items. An Airport Commission Plan lists six nominees (Paul Riddell, Joe Howe, William Brothers, John King, Eddie Schieffler, Zipporah Mondy), each appointed in 2025 to staggered terms running from 1 to 5 years. A grant budget for a water rehabilitation project shows Arkansas Economic Development Commission funds of $537,544 and Delta Regional Authority funds of $2,000,000, for a total project cost of $2,537,544, mostly construction ($2,111,902). A draft resolution would designate Mayor Joseph Whitfield to administer two DRA/AEDC awards, AR-8786 for $1,999,869.00 and AR-9335 for $508,995.00, for the 2025 federal award cycle, with that authority carrying over to any future mayor. A 2020 background letter from the State Aid Street Committee's attorney explains program rules: overlay projects are capped at $300,000 and design projects at $400,000, with 100% funding for cities under 25,000 people. A draft ordinance would regulate city vehicle use: department heads may be assigned a vehicle for official duties, take-home use requires the mayor's written approval, personal use is prohibited, and violations can bring discipline up to termination; the draft is unsigned, with blank spaces for the ordinance number, mayor's name, and adoption date. A flyer confirms the town hall for Thursday, November 20, 5:30-7:00 PM, at the PCCUA Hendrix Fine Arts Center Community Room. Page 11 is blank.
| Airport Commission appointees | 6 members, staggered 1-5 year terms (all appointed 2025) | |
| Water rehab total project cost | $2,537,544 | |
| Water rehab - Delta Regional Authority share | $2,000,000 | |
| Water rehab - AEDC share | $537,544 | |
| DRA award AR-8786 | $1,999,869.00 | |
| DRA award AR-9335 | $508,995.00 | |
| State Aid Street overlay project cap | $300,000 | |
| State Aid Street design project cap | $400,000 | |
| Town Hall date/time/location | Thurs. Nov. 20, 5:30-7:00 PM, PCCUA Hendrix Fine Arts Center Community Room |
Transcript
Auto-generated from the meeting video's captions and lightly cleaned for readability — wording is kept as spoken, not corrected, except that caption-garbled names of city officials are normalized against the roster. Speaker names follow the attribution work in our governance record; a ° marks a name our reviewers have not yet verified. Every timestamp plays the city's video from that moment. Watch the full meeting ↗
1:50
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Th will be done on earth in heaven. Give us this day and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who tres against us but deliver us from evil. is the kingdom and glory forever and ever to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. I'll be come on tomorrow. Madame clerk, will you call the role, please?
2:41
Roll call Roll call (attendance) — present: Maxine Miller, Dr. Kyle Miller, Adrian Messina, Don Etherly, Monica Davis. Absent: Joe St. Columbia.
2:55
Treasurer Derrick Turner Thank you. So, we do have a quorum. Um, and we'll go ahead and kick it off. So, for our minutes, we will review previous uh our previous meetings minutes on December 4th. We did not have a chance to get those meetings prepared for you all for this meeting, but they will be attached to the meetings for from here on December 4th. And we will also from there, not also, but we from there jump into our old business, which is a a brief financial update. And I'll give Mr. Turner a chance to explain the handouts that he's just provided for everybody. Well, I've handed out the monthly reports, the treasures report for the city and the report financial report for the water department. Um so briefly for the city operations um we we're continuing to cut spending and as you can see um in October report our expenditures were uh for the month of October were $570,000. So that's down slightly from $574,000 in September. So we are steadily uh cutting expenditures and we also we are also continuing to experience a gain from operations and in October we experienced the gains in operations of $151,185. So so so we're doing good as far as operation and cutting costs. Uh I've also given you a list of claims. I gave you one on October 3rd and uh so on October 3rd the claims for the general fund were approximately $3.6 million. Uh so now they're down about 3.2 two in the general fund. And so we've paid uh from October 3rd to November 18th uh about $48,000 in in claims. Uh primarily most of that is IRS and LFY uh payment plan and also um we're making some progress in the landfield fund as well. uh in the landfill it was on October 3rd it was about $259,000 and uh November 18th today it was 190 approximately $193,000 and so we've paid that down about $67,000 so all in all from October and we paid down about $5,000 in street fund so all in Oh, uh, from the general fund, street fund, landfield fund, we've paid down approximately $481,000 in claims.
6:01
Unidentified So, we're down to what right now the amount
6:08
Treasurer Derrick Turner° and all three funds about close to 4 million. 3.9 million
6:14
Unidentified down from Yeah. Down from 4.4.
6:17
Treasurer Derrick Turner From 4.4 to 3.9. Yeah, in the general fund is down to 3.2, down from 3.6.
6:25
Unidentified Okay, just keep it up there, mayor, and we'll keep you.
6:31
Mayor Joseph Whitfield I want to I want to give a shout out to um Fzra Turner for putting this together. I think that anytime we're able to have all of our claims centrally located and in one space, we can make a better plan. We are going to be talking about um getting a budget ready to be proposed for the new year for next year. And so that budget will also try to reflect an aggressive approach to pay down as much of this as we can. So um we're going in the right direction and we're going to keep that and I definitely want to give credit to Mr. Turner for making sure that he's able to kind of keep us on track with that too.
7:07
Councilman Adrian Messina Well, we what we want to do is let the governor see that we're going down
7:12
Unidentified and we are
7:13
Unidentified make her happy. We are
7:14
Unidentified make her happy.
7:15
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Yeah. Any any discussion, comments, questions about the claims, financial report? Don't want to rush anybody to look through it. If there are none, if there are none, we'll move on. I'll let you all continue to peruse that and we'll move on as well to our new business. So for our first order of new business, you will find on page one in your packet, this is a list of commission plan or the this is a list of the potential members for the commission plan or for the airport commission, excuse me. Um these names have either been involved with the airport commission, have been recently appointed under previous administration. One of the changes that's been made for the commission, if you look to the far right in your packet, there's an appointment term that's been staggered. This was intentional to make sure that when new people roll off or roll on and certain people fulfill their terms, um we can get new personnel on there as needed and make sure that they're compliant with um the rules and regulations that they're supposed to follow. So on this board uh and commission, you have some experienced pilots. You have stakeholders from the community as well. This is a pretty well balanced commission and I'm bringing it to you all through the packet to see if we to ask if we're ready to make a motion to confirm.
8:54
City Attorney Andre Valley I think excuse me, Mayor Whitfield that you weren't aware of the miss's u opinion last year. It's fine for us to do that, but we got to do it by ordinance
9:05
City Attorney Andre Valley so that we can Yes. So we can establish all of these by ordinance. Uh the mayor's nominates and the council confirms these are Mayor Whitfield's nominations. Um we can taste approve them tonight and then come back at the next council meeting and say, "Okay, here's the ordinance that establishes and make sure we do it so we won't so we can continue to move forward if that's what you all want to do." But um we still need to adopt it by by ordinance because
9:32
Unidentified are you saying we're going to have six instead of five uh directors?
9:41
City Attorney Andre Valley° Uh that's why you have to do it by ordinance. The ordinance currently calls for five. You can have five to seven.
9:46
Unidentified Five or seven.
9:48
City Attorney Andre Valley° Yes. I think it's five to seven. But I I'll take
9:51
Unidentified five to seven.
9:52
Unidentified Yes.
10:10
Unidentified Now, this looks pretty good to me what we have right here.
10:14
Unidentified I guess the question is, do you want a seven member board or do you want to leave it at five?
10:17
Unidentified Go seven. Let me know. We'll we'll go seven.
10:22
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° I think so. From what I've been able to gauge from the conversations with those that are on the board, um I think six seems to be okay. I don't necessarily know if we need to expand that into a much bigger commission. I think the thing that I like the most was they staggered the appointment terms. So this way you can get new people onto that commission to get experience, to bring different perspectives, to bring different priorities, but also not lose a ton of experience in the process.
10:51
Unidentified Now this is fine with me. are fine with everybody else
10:55
City Attorney Andre Valley° because you're for the public sake. What we're doing is basically reconstituting the board because Mr. League was saying because the appointments are so out of date money is the only one that that been appointed in recent memory and it's so out of date that basically what we're doing is reestablishing the entire board is what we're doing. Uh, so in the ordinance, Mayor Whitfield, are you saying that you want the ordinance to say six members?
11:24
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Yes. Yes. And is there any discussion, any further discussion, questions, comments about the airport commission?
11:37
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° How did y'all come over the years? How did y'all do the years? So, speaking to a couple of the members, the the commission obviously stands to benefit the development of the airport, the the maintenance of the airport, um the branding of the airport, everything that makes it run. And so, keeping folks on here, I think it made sense to have experienced pilots, people that have had experience either working at airports, um owning hangers, flying planes. Otherwise, I feel like we don't know what necessarily what we'll get from a management point if we're putting people over an airport commission. So, part of it was the practical [clears throat] experience of people that have um some insight, some wisdom on what it takes to run an airport, but while also staggering the terms makes it possible to bring new people into that into that arena as well. So the whole point of it is you can we can rotate people in while not losing a ton of foundational knowledge if you have a big project going on because to do that with an entirely new team might might set that project up for failure. So is that a concern? Is that a
12:48
Unidentified I just want to know how you how you all came up the years.
12:51
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° Okay. Good question. Question. So, what we will do is we will get an ordinance together and make sure that that um complies with what this list is called. And
13:05
Unidentified usually the ones you have on here right now are experienced
13:09
Unidentified with the airport commission. Yes.
13:10
Unidentified They've been on it for a long time and they know what they're doing.
13:14
Unidentified Yes.
13:15
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° There's an the experience level ranges. Um and not everybody has the same level of experience. Uh as city attorney valley says, Aoramani is the newest was the newest appointee appointment and um she definitely represents someone that did not come from a a previous background of pilot experience or um having a license and since she's joined she's been gaining that experience. Who was that now?
13:40
Unidentified Zapora Mundy
13:43
Unidentified Yeah.
13:46
Unidentified I think she didn't rad. Oh, well he was that the ter was that the person appointed
13:52
City Attorney Andre Valley° well what happened as a technical matter mayor uh Franklin appointed Paul Ryell but then we went through that whole discussion Mr. Lee was saying well the board is backly defunct and so he was he was placed there by uh Mayor Franklin but in the interim he's been meeting and etc. We've been trying to establish uh trying to establish the board properly again. So, he was the last uh he was the last appointee, but I don't know if he's actually served.
14:27
Unidentified Okay.
14:28
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° But he was appointed this year. Thank you for that clarification. Any anything else? Anything else on this? So, we will get an ordinance together and we will have that prepared for us for our December 4th, our next uh council December 2nd. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you, President.
14:50
City Attorney Andre Valley May we The statute says seven members. We're required to have seven. Um 1459 359 104 says seven member. the previous said I'm reading now. It says [clears throat] 1439 104 says seven members. So you still would have a still would have [laughter] one you would have one vacancy. That's that's all it is. Thank you. All right. So, we will prepare that and make
15:46
City Attorney Andre Valley° I I'll prepare that and have it ready for you. I think we we can get that done.
15:50
Unidentified Thank you. You're welcome.
15:52
Mayor Joseph Whitfield into our second uh business of order today. in your packet starting on page two um all the way to page four you will find uh DRA and AEDC grants for waterline improvement and landfill updates. These are two awards that we have recently received for improvement $2 million in total for improvement to waterline replacement in some critical need areas. I've been talking to Mr. Sai Rose and Mr. Ken Wild about um how we can start surveying that and making sure that some of our highest um priority areas are addressed. And then as well um there is a $500,000 grant um as part of this that's for the landfield. There was original there was discussion um for whether that $500,000 would be best used for a new lie treatment system at the landfill or if it would be better used for pumps for sewer pumps. And they went the route. They're wanting to go the route of pumps. That's what the original grant was for and so that's what they're asking for now. Um again, page two gives you the total breakdown for all the fees, inspection, construction, administration, etc. So you can see those totals. And this sample um the resolution that you will see on pages three and four is to give and grant permission to use these funds for for those respective projects.
17:13
Unidentified I got a question right here. It says other fees 7,500. What what are the other fees?
17:22
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° So there is uh for the Delta Regional Authority there will possibly subcontract opportunities. There are also possibly um fees for the people the the firm that's preparing this for us um East Arkansas Planning Development Commission. So So yeah, so they're getting they're the ones that did the grant for us essentially. So we didn't have anybody to necessarily put this grant together for us from our administrative office. This was done from them. So
17:53
Unidentified Okay.
17:55
Unidentified Right. And that's is he said origination fees.
17:58
Unidentified Yeah.
18:04
Unidentified okay. those ones that came in and talked to us. Is that the
18:08
Unidentified East?
18:11
Unidentified That's about about a month ago, six weeks ago.
18:13
Unidentified I believe I believe this project is sits out a little further than that. They
18:18
Unidentified about two months ago. Derek talked about remember they came in here about five.
18:25
Unidentified Yes, we had we had a we had a public hearing one night. I believe that's what you're talking about.
18:29
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° And this is what this is for that $7,500 and putting it together. No, I think well the pro the pe I believe they came here a longer further out than two months ago because this we've gotten this grant this grant was awarded right around the time that I was appointed but they were waiting for a new mayor to be um in office to to make sure that we got the funds. So I think this would have happened you all would have had this conversation for this grant I want to say closer to about a year ago.
18:56
Unidentified Oh no no it wasn't that far. Yeah.
18:59
Unidentified Was it McMiller? It was about two months ago at the most. I I I Mr. Messina, I think you're confusing the award date with with the application date. I think you're speaking in terms of when we were awarded the the grant when it came around the time Mayor Whitfield's appointment.
19:21
Mayor Joseph Whitfield There's there's also another loan um that Miss Ramsey just brought to attention, the NARC loan. That's what we came and got a resolution passed for to have me as um an authorized signature on that on those funds as well. So, that came that came up about a month and a half ago. I know. Yeah, we had that and that was also that's also for waterline replacement.
19:46
Unidentified Okay. As long as y'all know where where that money's going, that's all that counts.
19:49
Mayor Joseph Whitfield So, is there Thank you, Mr. Messina. Is there a motion to authorize uh me to make sure that these funds are used for these projects respectively?
19:59
Unidentified I'll make a motion.
20:01
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° There a second.
20:02
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller I second.
20:06
Roll call Roll-call vote — Adrian Messina: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Dr. Kyle Miller: yes.
20:16
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Thank you. Motion passes. Thank you. So on to our next order of business. Um bullet point number three. Uh this is uh about committee. This is not necessarily something that's in the packet, but this is more for floor discussion. Committee implementation. the chief of staff, uh, the newly um, selected chief of staff, Kevin Martin, Kevin Martin Martin Arnold, and I, uh, were putting together some ideas for how to get the city to move forward in terms of some of the growth and potential that we stand to get from focusing on some of these committees, and I'll just name them so that the public can also hear them as well. We believe that by addressing committees for council members to lead, this will help with the progress of city development and growth. These are uh potentially community events, public safety, beautifification, youth council, outdoor recreation, and economic development. Essentially, each of these committees um represents something or an area in the city that a needs attention and b would allow us to grow in terms of attracting different industry, also making the quality of life here better. And so what we're asking is I'm wanting to introduce on the floor right now is a conversation around committees that we can all lead as city council members to make sure that we're getting the public involved. We are um pushing forward with certain we're pushing forward with u priorities to make sure that the city is running at its optimum level. And I'll just explain just anecdotally beautifification. Um through my time as the director for Chamber of Commerce, this is one of the priorities that a lot of citizens are feeling like they want to see happen. Whether that's the creation of pocket parks, um the restoration of our parks around the city, our public parks, we don't have a parks and recreation department right now, um that was dissolved some time ago. And while we are maybe getting ourselves together financially to make sure we can reestablish that in the future, having a committee to focus on that would be great. Similarly, economic development. How do we get industry to come in potentially thinking about certain incentives that are going to make investing here um attractive? Because if we think about our downtown financial district here on Cherry and Walnut, if we think about Plaza Street, how are we going to incentivize potentially getting people to use um and land in these spaces? So, those are just some of the lines of thinking and ideas that are part of this uh approach. And I just wanted to introduce that to the floor for conversation around um if there is a committee that you think you would like to lead, if there's a committee that not on here that you think might be more priority, um where are we as a body and and what do we think about that?
23:14
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller° I mean, I think it's a I think it's a great idea. I think it's a it's an opportunity for us to be, you know, involved with our constituents and it gives the constituents the opportunity to have a bigger voice and participate in the in the moving, you know, moving and going forth of the city. I I think that myself personally I would like to see the list and then like a brief description
23:39
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller° and I could probably give a better you know um you know
23:45
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller° decision then of something I one I might want to participate in.
23:48
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° Yeah. So the list now the list is we we are open to making sure that this list is reflective of what the city needs and more or less the list as you're seeing it here is what it would entail. Um uh initially youth we have to focus on our youth. Um we have a huge talent drain and we're not retaining a lot of that talent. how are we empowering our kids to stay in this community, but also um empowering them to make sure that they're stepping into leadership roles. So, more or less these six would be the six that we would focus on because each one of these we stand to gain a lot of progress for the city, quality of life would improve. Um we would stand to gain uh leaders, young leaders that would start to make sure that they can step into certain roles. So, I do appreciate that, Mr. Miller. This is just an initial conversation obviously and I'm curious to know what everyone else thinks about it as well.
24:50
Unidentified Sounds good. Okay. Is there is are these committees that we think we can lead? Are are these committees that we feel comfortable leading? because I I'll tell you from just being a resident here, from being someone that's grown up here, these are areas that need these areas desperately need our attention um as a city. And so again, eventually I think as we continue to tackle down some of our claims, some of our departments we can start to reestablish, but in the meantime, um how do we make sure we're filling in and standing in the gap for those areas that need to be improved and addressed? Mayor, what do you think about when Don and Joe are here?
25:34
Unidentified They can give more input.
25:36
Unidentified Yeah. Well, yeah, this is not going to be decided today, but yeah, this is just an initial conversation. Yeah. So, this would be an ongoing. Ideally, this will be something that will be adopted soon because as a body, we have to agree and and take this on. But, um just doing a temperature check to see um how what our thoughts are. Miss Miss Miller and Miss Davis, do y'all have any thoughts at all? Um I'm interested but I think I'm like um my brother. I think it's very difficult for me to commit to things unless I have a little bit more information. It sounds good uh in theory. So and I and I know that you've uh worked out what you want to see done. So I mean as soon as we have something to sort of roughly understand what is it that we would be doing, what sort of time commitment are we looking at, uh what are our responsibilities, what do we need to bring back to the body, that sort of thing. Um then I mean it looks good to me.
26:43
Unidentified Thank you.
26:44
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° And so and we'll we'll bring a formal proposal but obviously this is going to be even if the um the committee's changed. I wanted to make space for that. This will be something that will be flushed out. Um, and the type of commitment this would be, ideally, each city council member would head one of these committees with um, constituents in the community that either a have experience within that particular um, area or b um, want to help because we do have a a ton of citizens here and residents here that want to volunteer. So, that's that's the plan. those minutes and um developments will be brought back to the city council and so we'll flush out what that looks like for sure. I just this was again to gauge um to gauge interest. So
27:29
Unidentified quick question. So uh for instance the youth council would that tie into a department that we already have like with our um uh parks and the pool over across the levy. I mean is that sort of what you're you're doing is
27:51
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° so the youth council uh particularly in a lot of cities this is its own establishment sometimes someone in the administrative office um does leads that initiative u as we trying to be mindful of salary cost and um understand that we can't necessarily right now go out and give somebody a full-time salary um or maybe it might not be the smartest thing to do a part-time salary for this at the moment um city council members giving involved with this could be helpful. And the the approach here would be a to prime students that are wanting to get involved in local municipality government. Give them that opportunity to get some experience. Our youth here have a ton of ideas in terms of what they want to see, what would keep them here. Um like I mentioned, we do have a talent drain and the the sentiment is you have to leave to go and be successful when that's not the case. I mean, and as long as that is the case, we'll continue to drain. So this is an attempt to slowly reverse that and give kids a voice, give them a chance to show um that their that their priorities matter too. So, so yeah. So, it would normally in a bigger city or in a city that has a little bit more of a bigger budget, it it would be someone through an administrative staff um leading that, but this would be its own entity where youth are able to come together, have uh bi-weekly meetings as it as it's established by the committee that's leading it and um have those ideas and thoughts represented here in front of the council.
29:19
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° Mayor, could you respond to what city other cities are doing this? Oh, absolutely. You have this in a lot of major cities. Memphis, New York City. There's a question someone just text me.
29:31
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, Memphis, New York City. Um, and it's not just big cities. Uh, I believe Little Rock has a version of this as well. This is it. It's it's to show that we're not overlooking the youth. And that's that's a conversation that we have to make sure that we continue to keep at the forefront along with these other things. um e outdoor recreation. We're the third fastest growing state in the country in terms of where people are moving to. And so one of those of those reasons, quality of life, cost of living, but third, access to outdoor recreation. And we have the third largest river here in our backyard. So while we don't have a parks and recreation department, um it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be having that conversation. So,
30:12
Unidentified so yeah,
30:14
Unidentified I think that's a good idea. I too would like to know I mean um description uh a little bit more information about each one.
30:26
Unidentified Absolutely. Absolutely.
30:30
Mayor Joseph Whitfield I know we don't have funds, but I think with some of the committees, I mean, some things can be done. I mean, it's a start. Well, thank you. All right. So, what we will do in terms of that next meeting is make sure that we put together exactly what that can look like and a working example of how these groups report back to the council who mix them up um even meeting times and etc. So, thank y'all. If there's no further discussion for that, we will move on to our fourth bullet point. Um our city a city street a project. This is on pages five and six of their packets. If you follow um the official city of color west Facebook page now that was launched about two weeks ago was um this was announced on on um social media site. So there is an opportunity for the city and I believe we've been awarded this in the past. Some of our roads need some work um in terms of overlay. We have potholes. Um, and you have we have a lot of areas around the city where there's North Elellanena, Kentucky Street, James Street, Springdale. I mean, we can pick and do a spin spin wheel and pick. Pages five and six detail what the program looks like. We've launched a poll and we've gotten a lot of good feedback in terms of citizens areas that they want us to focus on. The and I don't know if I said it, but it's up to $300,000 is what it's up to. And the deadline for this I want to say is the first weekend in December or first week in December. So we are going to work with the department heads um in street and sanitation and take that feedback from the survey that um the public uh addressed and worked on and we're going to put together a plan to ideally tackle some of our worst hit areas in terms of um roads that need overlays. So just to inform you that we will be going for that particular grant.
32:28
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Any discussion questions about that?
32:31
Unidentified No, I'm happy with it.
32:34
Unidentified Yeah.
32:38
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Our next order of business is our city vehicle ordinance. Um this is a draft of an ordinance that has been put together and this is pages um 7, 8, and nine. So, as mentioned, um I've sat down with uh Treasurer Turner u numerous times now and talked about some areas and ways that we can potentially start to make sure that we're not spending needlessly and being good stewards with our money. One of the areas that I particularly want to address is making sure that our city vehicles, we're being good stewards with our city vehicles. And in some instances, um, we have some personnel that have multiple city vehicles that they're, um, using. We have some city vehicles that are being used outside of the line of going to work, um, into the job site, and that's not what those vehicles are for. And we want to make sure that a department heads are aware of that, which I did send an executive order for on November 4th. Um, I did send that out. But I also want to make sure that no matter who's sitting in this chair, this is something that is consistent around just being a steward of city equipment. And so I wanted to give you all just a second to but that's the heart of what this is and I wanted to give everybody a second to um look at the draft and and share their thoughts about that.
34:01
City Attorney Andre Valley I think the mayor's executive order is sufficient. Uh in our personnel handbook, we have 6.2 two that already addresses it. Uh it reads, "On occasion the city may permit certain employees to use vehicles to conduct uh business. A valid current driver license must be in position possession of the operator and maintained at all time and use of city vehicle. Employees shall exhibit due care at all times and and shall comply with all federal, state and local laws peritting the operation of the vehicle. The use of city vehicles is restricted to city business purposes only. Use use of vehicle by department head shall be directed by the mayor and consistent with the state and federal law for taking consideration relevant insurance policies and coverage issues and details. Uh employees other than department head use city vehicles shall not pick up or transport any private parties nor directly involved with the work of the city without private permission of the mayor. Employees may transfer spouses in city vehicles when attending conferences or meetings. Employees using city vehicles are individually responsible for all fines, penalties, access to the employee as a result of speeding tickets or any traffic offenses for which the employees cited using city vehicles. Defts or accidents involving city vehicle must be imported immediately and the policy of the department head and the mayor. Improper, careless, negligent, destructive, reckless or unsafe use of city equipment or vehicles may result in disperate action. Uh when I met with the mayor about I told him that all I think that all you need is a directive and anybody follows your directive, you can take whatever action you want to against it. And that's I think this directive is is solid
35:42
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° and and I agree that a directive works because I did send it out. But I think what president would show is that this is not something that every mayor has enforced. Um and I think in part because of maybe preferences to how we see that. So the executive order did go out as I mentioned on November 4th, but I do believe this is worthy of an ordinance because there are just systems and procedures. As I mentioned probably two meetings ago, our overspending has ballooned in areas and ways just because we haven't had some oversight on some things that need it. So whether I'm in the seat or somebody else is in the seat, I do think this is ordinance worthy. And we we want to make sure that we're just being good stewards of um things that our taxpayers our taxpayers dollars are going to. So, this is not necessarily a plea for a vote tonight. I just wanted to give this ordinance out to let you all know that this is something that will be introduced and um it will be something that's cost effective and it's also going to go a long way towards our maintenance of our vehicles as well. So, I have a question in in a situation like that. If you you have a I'm going use this term. That's probably not the right legal term. Um, but you you you introduce a supplemental of I know it's probably not to
37:15
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° That's correct. It's just an amendment to the to the
37:17
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° Okay. So, it would be referred to as amendment.
37:19
City Attorney Andre Valley° Yes. We'll be amending the sections that that got
37:21
Unidentified that's not there.
37:22
Unidentified Okay.
37:23
City Attorney Andre Valley° So, it it's only it doesn't nullify what's existing. It just
37:28
City Attorney Andre Valley° it amends it to the standard in conflict with it. the areas that's that's still in conflict with it uh would be superseded by this. But this
37:37
Unidentified a clause or something that says that in there like a clause in there a clause that you put in there that says that like
37:42
City Attorney Andre Valley° yes yes it's not in this one but yes that's one that says any any ordinance a part of of any ordinance that are in conflict here with hereby repealed.
37:50
City Attorney Andre Valley° Yes sir. Uh the mayor met with me about he issued executive order after meeting with me. Uh what each mayor has done is is discretion. I I understand completely what the mayor is saying.
38:05
Unidentified Yes sir.
38:07
City Attorney Andre Valley° I think that that my position in the past the city also had a policy that was repealed at one point
38:12
City Attorney Andre Valley° that every city vehicle had to be identified with a with a sticker, a tag so you know it was a city vehicle. We had those policies in place as well. Um, good stewardship is always appropriate.
38:25
Unidentified Yes.
38:31
City Attorney Andre Valley° and anybody violently that is subject to discipline by the mayor.
38:34
Unidentified Yes.
38:35
City Attorney Andre Valley° And uh the mayor is in charge of
38:37
City Attorney Andre Valley all employee of the city with exception of those who work for city clerk and one employee work for city attorney. I have one secretary. Everybody else answers through the mayor and none of those employees that work for the city clerk or for the city attorney have vehicles or used vehicles for the city. So this this would be everybody that uses a vehicle with the city.
39:03
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Thank you, Dr. Miller. Any other discussion before moving on to new business?
39:10
Mayor Joseph Whitfield I think it's a good policy. I'm not disputing what you're saying. All right. Thank you all. I'm going to moving on to the next order of business. I'm going to swap um or cover seven first. Uh it kind of goes back to what I mentioned during the um over the budget report, but uh Treasurer Turner, Chief of Staff, um Kevin Martin Arnold, and Mr. Ramsey and I, we are going to talk about our budget for we've already started talking about the budget yesterday for this upcoming year. And so we are going to make sure that we try to get that out time in a timely fashion. And I want to repeat that the proposed budget will make sense for making sure that we're paying down our claims responsibly. So, um that is one of the focuses that that's one of the biggest focuses that we're going to have for that. So, you will see that proposed budget soon. And our final order of business um is this Thursday on page 10 of your packet. This is a print out and you can share this. I encourage you to take a picture of it and send it to folks that maybe um have not heard of it. But this Thursday at 5:30, we're going to be doing the first of a series of town hall meetings. I do believe that after spending six weeks in this office. Um there is a lot of healing that this city wants to do and needs to do and I believe that one of the first steps that we should take is making sure that as a city we um we listen. So, at PC, um the details are on this one, but this first one will be at PC at 5:30. We will have two town hall meetings in Helena, two in West Helena, and two centrally located. Um about 40% of our residents here in the city, we know access to vehicles. So, we want to be sensitive to the fact that it might be harder for some people to get to certain um town hall meetings than others. But the entire point of this is to make sure that as a city, we can speak to our constituents. we can speak to the people that put us in our positions and we want to make sure that we listen to their priorities. The department heads have already been contacted and told that they will be there so the public will have a chance to engage where the city is, where we're going, but a chunk of that time will be listening to hear what areas we may need to improve on, what areas we can potentially do better, which areas we've overlooked. So, um I encourage you all to to be there um and share that with somebody. Again, this will be the first out of six. So, there will be five other ones to make sure that we get as much of the city as possible.
41:48
Unidentified Mr. Mayor.
41:49
Unidentified Yes, sir.
41:50
Councilman Adrian Messina By being in town and going to different places, Walmart and and uh other places, the questions they're going to come up with, when are we going to lower the water bill?
42:03
Unidentified It's coming up, man. I'm telling you.
42:05
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° So, we've had uh the chief of staff and I have been having meetings with department heads and we're prepared for that question. There are areas that I do think we can improve on as a city throughout our different departments and we have been meeting with department heads throughout this week to talk to them about how some of those questions will come up and we want to make sure that we have answers and not answers that will say we'll get you an answer but answers that help maybe point a clear picture or paint a clear picture. So, so we're not necessarily I do anticipate that there's going to be um some strong feelings. I I anticipate there will be some strong feelings at a town hall, but I don't think that should discourage us from not that not saying that you're saying it should discourage us, but I do think that those questions are worth fielding and answering. Absolutely. So, I'm we're prepared for that question.
42:49
Unidentified Prepared when it comes.
42:50
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° Oh, absolutely. We all we all took on these roles, so I think being prepared is is the least we can do. So So, yeah. Good. Uh because it's a town hall meeting, you need to post whatever agenda if there is one online. It might sound we have a Facebook page now. The city has Facebook page.
43:08
City Attorney Andre Valley Uh just want to remind all of you all about Facebook pages in United States Supreme Court decision. Uh and whether you accept friend requests or not and whether if you're accepting friend requests uh we cannot block citizens. If you're having uh comments on the page, we can't delete comments. They have to be able to say freely what they want. Uh I think if it's set up, it needs to be set up a way where there's no comments because if a person starts whatever they want to say, it's going to be there. Uh the web page, we also have to post for every city council meeting, every meeting uh what is um the agenda is. Uh also because it's a meeting of the city officials, this has to be recorded. So you have to make sure that you have video recordings, audio recordings as as we have done so and make those available to the public. Just want to make sure we comply with FYI. As I told you on the email, I have court out of time. I'm going to try to make it back. Uh but I'll be out of town Thursday afternoon. I'm going to try to make it back to make it to the meeting. But at this point, I don't know if I'll be able to make it. If I do so, it will be I'll probably be very late. But I just wanted to make sure I responded to the email and told you all that when when the mayor sent the notice. Any other discussion, questions, comments? All right. Motion to adjurnn if we are all set.
44:37
Unidentified So mean.
How this page was made: built from the city's own meeting video (YouTube ↗) and its posted meeting packet (Drive folder ↗). Dollar figures are quoted from the documents; nothing here is paraphrased from memory. Corrections: cheekforhelena@gmail.com.