In 30 seconds
- Council approved the July 21 and July 23 minutes (5-0) and both Phyllis Hammonds event permits — Centennial Missionary Baptist's 150th anniversary and Walnut Street to the Carline: The Power of Black Business — on a 6-0 vote.
- Water Department: an active sewage leak was found near Oak Forrest and excavation set to begin the next morning; Beech Street repairs continue; a 23,000-ft DRA-funded water line replacement in West Helena was awarded to A&B Construction; the Cintas uniform contract was not voted on — cost comparison to go out by email first.
- Council bought a used $30,000 sanitation truck from Memphis (contract order 14-2026) on a 4-2 vote, waiving competitive bidding; St. Columbia and Messina voted no.
- New financial disclosure: the city owes Entergy roughly $554,757 plus $146,000 from the water/sewer department (about $700,757 combined), the mailed notice says some charges go back as far as 40 years, while the mayor put them at 2000-2011; he said the city attorney will verify the amounts before any payment.
- Councilman Adrian Messina said the city's debt fell from about $13 million to about $4 million over roughly a year and a half, and said no money is currently going toward paying it down; police-vehicle needs (5-10 cars) were raised against the sanitation truck spending.
- The community service ordinance, the resolution establishing uniform rules, and the receipt reimbursement ordinance were all tabled to a future meeting; the A&P river-boardwalk grant resolution was presented but not voted on this meeting.
Recap
Previous minutes approved
Council approved the minutes from the July 21 and July 23 meetings on a roll-call vote, five yes with one member (Dr. Miller) not yet present for roll call.
A&P River Park boardwalk grant presentation
A&P Commission Executive Director Helen Halbert asked the city to help pursue an Office of Outdoor Recreation matching grant to rebuild the river boardwalk, citing storm damage, a worn walking surface, and a dangerous entrance where the boardwalk meets the parking lot. The A&P would cover the required match; the application would go in at the end of August with a decision expected before Thanksgiving and construction, if awarded, in spring or early summer. Halbert said the project needs a council resolution authorizing the grant application, but that item was left for the council to take up later and no vote on the resolution occurred at this meeting.
Two event permits approved, 6-0
Phyllis Hammonds requested permits for two events: commemorating Centennial Missionary Baptist Church's 150th anniversary , and "Walnut Street to the Carline: The Power of Black Business," which included public comment from Houston Stackhouse II about his father's blues legacy on Walnut Street. The longest-serving council member, Joe St. Columbia, moved to accept both proposals "wholeheartedly"; the motion passed 6-0.
Shirley Garner: property damage and water bill complaint
Resident Shirley Garner told council she was charged $323 with no explanation, while tenants who hadn't paid bills in 90 days were not charged the same way, and that her water was cut off while her account was current. She also alleged a code enforcement officer placed a sticker on a relative's car shortly after she spoke critically of the administration at a prior meeting. The mayor said he noted her concerns and would raise them internally with the relevant departments; no vote or formal resolution followed.
Water Department update
Superintendent Rose reported Beech Street repairs are underway after sewer line replacement, with concrete pouring and street reopening expected within days. A sewage leak was confirmed near Oak Forrest, reported to ADEQ and the Office of Water Quality, with excavation to begin the next morning. Under DRA funding, a first-phase 23,000-ft, 2-inch galvanized water line replacement in West Helena was awarded to A&B Construction, with a similar-sized phase planned for Helena next. A related project will relocate water and sewer lines for the U.S. 49 bridge replacement, with A&B Construction likely doing that work too. A Cintas uniform-service proposal was presented (5-year total about $33,344.90 versus roughly $22,175 over 3 years for 12 field employees) but was not voted on; Superintendent Rose agreed to email the cost comparison so council can decide at a later meeting.
Sanitation truck purchase, 4-2
Chief of Staff Kevin Martin-Arnold said the department had to pull the commercial truck off its route to cover residential pickup; the mayor said items to be auctioned from the sanitation yard should bring in about $17,500. Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller moved to buy the $30,000 used truck from Memphis, waiving competitive bidding ; the city attorney restated the motion as placing contract order 14-2026 on third and final reading. The vote passed 4-2: St. Columbia and Messina voted no; Dr. Miller, Davis, Ms. Miller, and Etherly voted yes. Councilwoman Maxine Miller called the purchase "a band-aid," saying she voted yes only so residents would not go without pickup, and urged buying one good truck at a time going forward.
City finances: debt and spending priorities
During the sanitation debate, Councilman Adrian Messina argued the city needs police vehicles (an earlier ask of 10, possibly negotiable to 5-6) "more than we need a sanitation truck." Messina said the city's debt fell from about $13 million to about $4 million over roughly a year and a half but that spending continues. Chief of Staff Kevin Martin-Arnold noted the sanitation trucks can be paid from the street fund, while police vehicles must come out of the general fund. The city attorney countered that any decision to contract out sanitation needs an apples-to-apples cost comparison, since trucks would still have to be purchased either way. Near adjournment, Messina read from a mailed notice: the city owes Entergy about $554,757 and the water/sewer department about $146,000, with some charges going back as far as 40 years. The mayor put the older charges at 2000-2011 and said the city attorney will verify the amounts before the city commits to payment. Messina said "not a penny" has gone toward the debt during his time on council.
Three ordinances tabled; meeting adjourned
The mayor proposed tabling the remaining agenda items — the community service ordinance (assigning eligible persons to volunteer service per Phillips County District Court guidance) , the resolution establishing uniform rules for council engagement , and the receipt reimbursement ordinance (replacing per diem procedures) — to a future meeting. Council agreed and adjourned.
The documents
Everything the council had in front of it, summarized. Page stamps open that page in the document desk.
Event Permit — 3rd Annual "Over the Levee" Reunion
Application for the 3rd Annual "Over the Levee" Reunion, submitted by former resident Amos King and sponsored by the Elizabeth Cash Dream Foundation . The event runs August 7-9, 2026: a meet-and-greet Aug 7 (4-8pm), a picnic Aug 8 (10am-5pm), and a dance Aug 9 at a location to be announced, not held in the park . Expected attendance is not listed, and unlike the other two permits in this packet, no department sign-off page (Police, Street/Sanitation, Fire) or signature is included .
| Event dates | August 7-9, 2026 | |
| Producer | Amos King (former resident), sponsored by Elizabeth Cash Dream Foundation |
Event Permit — "From Walnut Street to the Carline: The Powerful Black Business Story"
Application for a program celebrating Black-owned businesses on Walnut Street from the 1940s to the 1970s, submitted by Phyllis Y. Hammonds, George Powers, Emmanuel Armstrong, and the West Side Community Hub Inc. The event is set for September 2-3, 2026 on Walnut, Phillips, Missouri, and Elm Streets, with a walking tour, signage marking former business locations, and music . Expected attendance is 200, with a peak of 250 around 1pm; the application requests street closings, crowd control, and security . Police, Street/Sanitation, and Fire signed off May 5-7, 2026 .
| Event dates | September 2-3, 2026 | |
| Expected attendance | 200 (peak 250) |
Event Permit — Centennial Missionary Baptist 150th Anniversary
Application to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Centennial Missionary Baptist Church, described as the first National Landmark in the African American community, submitted by Phyllis Y. Hammonds, Jonetta Rowan, Keith Rowan Sr., and other descendants . The celebration is set for June 28, 2026, 9am-5pm, on York Street on the north side of the former church building, with a requested one-hour street closing and possible use of the Johnson family's space for parking . Expected attendance is 100 . Police, Street/Sanitation, and Fire signed off May 5-7, 2026 .
| Event date | June 28, 2026, 9am-5pm | |
| Expected attendance | 100 |
Ordinance — Community Service Program
Draft ordinance establishing a City of Helena-West Helena Community Service Program for people the Phillips County District Court orders, permits, or approves to perform community service . It creates a Program Coordinator under the Mayor, allows placement with City departments or approved nonprofit, faith-based, or charitable providers, and covers supervision, safety, injury reporting, and record-keeping . Participants are not treated as City employees and get no wages or benefits; the City has no authority to change any sentence, fine, or judicial credit set by the court . It repeals and replaces Ordinance No. 19-2016, is written to take effect immediately as an emergency measure upon passage, and appears in the packet unsigned and undated .
| Repeals | Ordinance No. 19-2016 | |
| Effective date | Immediate upon passage (emergency clause); adoption date left blank |
Resolution — Uniform Rules for Public Comment and Citizen Participation
Draft resolution setting uniform rules for public comment, citizen participation, decorum, and handling of pending litigation at City Council meetings . It bars using public comment to argue the merits of litigation against the City or to present evidence meant to influence a pending court case, while allowing comment on other legitimate City matters . It gives the presiding officer authority to enforce time limits, rule litigation-related or off-topic comments out of order, and end a speaker's remarks after a warning, and states the rules apply equally regardless of a speaker's identity, profession, or political affiliation . It would take effect immediately upon adoption and supersede conflicting past Council rules and customs; the packet copy is unsigned and undated .
| Effective date | Immediately upon adoption |
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 ↗
0:38Recording in progress.
0:54
Mayor Joseph Whitfield The meeting will come to order now.
0:57
Unidentified 6:00.
1:09
All present Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
1:53
Roll call Roll call (attendance) — present: Maxine Miller, Adrian Messina, Joe St. Columbia, Don Etherly, Monica Davis. Absent: Dr. Kyle Miller.
2:14
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Perfect. Thank you. So, we do have a quorum and we can get started this evening. Our first order of old business, um Madam Clerk sent out an email that consisted of the minutes from July 21st and 23rd. If there um assuming everyone had an opportunity to review those, if there are no um there's there aren't any oppositions to that, I'll entertain a motion. I'll take a motion to um approve the minutes.
2:50
Unidentified I so move.
2:52
Roll call Roll-call vote — Joe St. Columbia: yes; Adrian Messina: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Don Etherly: yes. Clerk's count: 5 yes.
3:07
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Motion passes. All right. Jumping into our new business, we're we're starting off this meeting with a uh a public meeting and a public hearing as it relates to our AMP Helena River boardwalk improvement project. With us today, we have the director, Ms. Helen Halbert, who's going to come up and give us um presentation on the status of that project and the ways that the city can help partner. So.
3:30
Helen Halbert Thank you, Mayor and members of the City Council. And I appreciate all of you that are here um to attend this meeting. My name is Helen Halbert and I'm the executive director for the AMP Commission. And I apologize, my voice is a little weak today, so I'll try to muddle through. Um the AMP Commission is interested in applying for a grant through the office of outdoor recreation for the purpose of renovating and upgrading our boardwalk. Um we feel like the boardwalk is a really special asset to the city and it's something that needs a little extra help right now and we're hoping to get some grant money to help us do that. So, I was just going to share with y'all a little bit of information about us. Um our uh mission at a tree that fell on the boardwalk and we got the tree removed, but we still have some damage from it. It sort of dislocated the the bench that was there that really wasn't in great shape to begin with. This photo over here shows an ongoing problem that we've had where the entrance of the boardwalk meets the parking lot and it's that's a a real dangerous situation. That is something that we are actively working on getting corrected right now. Um I've been working with Mr. Whalen, the city engineer, to figure out the best way to do that and it's likely that we will probably try to get that fixed even before if if we're lucky enough to get this grant even before then, we'll probably address that problem. That's just it from another angle. And then the the boards have just, you know, a lot of the boards have have worn over time. No.
5:09
Unidentified You know, you can go ahead.
5:11
Unidentified I'll let you get through. Um additionally,
5:15[clears throat]
5:16
Helen Halbert° there have been some signs out there uh that address different things like birding and some of the history of the community and
5:23
Helen Halbert a grant through the office of outdoor recreation. This is a matching grant uh that the state offers and so AMP is going to be responsible for the match portion of the money. It's important because we want to keep this uh boardwalk usable. We want to be able to use it for years to come. We feel like it's something that's unique to our river park situation. Not many communities are on the river at all, much less have a nice um piece of, you know, where you can actually access the river and get directly out there on it. This would be a real boost to our outdoor recreation
6:03[laughter]
6:03
Helen Halbert° as an asset and it would just strengthen our position for a tourism destination. And that's really all I have. I'll I'll try to entertain questions if anybody has any. Um but we just wanted to come and tell you a little bit about what we're doing and the the plan for this would be to uh put in the application at the end of August and we would hear something back before Thanksgiving more than likely, but it would be probably next uh spring early summer before construction would begin on the project if we are awarded the grant. Anybody? Yes, ma'am.
6:45
Unidentified So, this is a matching grant,
6:47
Helen Halbert° Yes, ma'am.
6:48
Unidentified Um are there any
6:49
Helen Halbert° table in front of all the council people and we it would require um a pass passing this resolution so that we are authorized to apply for the grant and um use the AMP money to do that. So, if y'all want to take that up at a later point in your meeting, that's fine.
7:03
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Are there any questions from the body? I think that um as as Ms. Halbert mentioned, the AMP has been a really good partner to the [snorts] city and they funded um projects that help us uh improve our quality of life here. So, I'm in.
7:23
Phyllis Hammons Um good evening to the mayor and to all the city council and and employees of uh Helena-West Helena. I'm Phyllis Hammons and what I have uh requesting uh for two uh events and your approval of those events. Um I'm going to start with the Centenary one. Uh this is the 150th anniversary of Centenary Church. Although it is fallen apart and uh however, the legacy of the church lives on and I have done some additional event so people can know the history of the church and not just the traditional and I've been thinking through this over and over again, not just the traditional kind of thing you bring in a speaker and you talk about the history but want to do things where the community can uh participate in learning about the history uh in fun and informative ways. So, um that's another reason why I want to have a little bit more time in order to do that. So, I'll have to redo the application uh for the Centenary event but hopefully we'll get the historical marker up around uh the same time we do the one for uh the Walnut Street Remembered. So, do you have any questions about that? The next one is it just kind of fell in my lap. Um the Walnut Street Remembered uh event. Um I am a descendant of uh um my father had businesses on Walnut Street and of course uh we grew up going to the Miller Theater and all the other wonderful places that were on Walnut Street. Uh it's quite interesting in the fact that as I have done more and more research, it's just the most interesting research that I have ever done. If if I were still in school, if they wanted if the my teacher wanted to know what I did over the summer, that would be it, doing the research on Walnut Street. Um I'm just going to tell you just a little bit about it.
9:37[clears throat]
9:38
Phyllis Hammons° Most people did do not know that Walnut Street came to be because of church the churches that would build the first Baptist black church was built in 1865 when the Union troops came in um when when they were here occupied the city they helped uh the Reverend JT White find a place to worship. Um and JT White was a free man who came to Helena of the by per the request of people who were at a church convention. And his first church was in horse stables that the Unions had provided. The second church for African Americans was Carter Chapel. CME Church and it was founded in 1865. Then along came Centennial. So to uh historically blues but we have not. But the pioneers uh of the blues that many of them had opportunities come back before they died here King Biscuit Blues Festival. A lot of people did not know that they honed their skills on Walnut Street. And there's a lot of discussion about um Helena being the home of the blues and of uh I'm not a bluesologist. Uh I'm a community historian. And but there's a lot of controversy about who had it first but we do know that both the um the blue he's not as well known as as the others and that's what we're trying to do is to get that message out and he talked about that. We're going to have a a couple events and they've kind of changed since I wrote that proposal to the um to to the city. We're going to turn Friday night into an awards event to honor the pioneer blues singers. We going to call their names and we going to feature Houston Stackhouse as our golden awardee because the fact that he nurtured many of the next generation of blues singers. We're also going to honor some other individual. I'm not going to call everybody's name, but these are people you know. And one person that I considered my friend when I was on the advisory board for the Delta Cultural Center was Sonny Payne. And we were really friends. And when I see him at Walmart, he said, "Oh, there's my friend." And we would hug and embrace because he was instrumental in promoting the how the blues got beyond the Arkansas Delta was because of KFFA and then eventually Sonny Payne became the DJ. And I remember him saying if it hadn't been for those pioneer blues singers that he wouldn't have had the position that he had and I admired him for saying that. Uh we're going to also honor um Here I'm losing my thought. Uh we're going to honor Lonnie Shields. Uh we're going to also honor James Morgan. James Morgan honed his skills at Elijah Miller. When we when I was in school, we called him our James Brown because he did the whole cake thing like James Brown did. And it was so much fun. We were all all the young girls we were screaming and hollering. And it was just was of fun. And then we have Tennessee Price. Uh he is an Eliza Miller alum. And uh he uh was also on that stage and George Powers, who is our board member, is going to talk a little bit more about that. And he's also going to be on the King Biscuit Blues stage. But he is another person that uh He's he's in his 70s, but he can do the James Brown. And so uh he deserves to be recognized. [clears throat] Uh we we're also going to uh honor, of course, like I indicated, Houston Stackhouse Sr. is our main focus. He's our golden boy, man, so to speak. And uh and the descendants of him, which uh Houston is going to come and talk to you in a in a minute, uh was also a musician. And then if you remember Philip Stackhouse, which is uh was the son of Houston, you know, they go by one and two, uh Houston two, and uh who's here, and we're going to honor him because he was up-and-coming musician, but due to his illness, unfortunately, he passed. Um there are other individuals, and that's going to happen on Friday night at Eliza Miller. And then we're going to motorcade to Walnut Street. Uh hopefully we'll have the unveiling of the uh Walnut Street historical marker. And uh if everything goes well, we'll do the centennial. And uh uh the centennial one, but we're going to have what we call a tour of Walnut Street. Of course, you might think there's nothing there, but the spirit lives on. There are uh They had some of the top uh clubs in the Delta in the Mississippi. But once they're we know where they are, we know the owners of those, uh, some of them have descendants that are still living and they will be a part of it and we're going to do a tour. We're also going to stop by the Delta Cultural Center because that's where, uh, the largest display of those pioneers, uh, that that, uh, that who honed their skills at Walnut Street, left there, went further north to Memphis, Chicago and and, uh, even in the to to to West Coast. Uh, and then, uh, we will engage, uh, uh, youth, young people in this event because if we want the legacy of the blues to continue, we have to educate them. And there are a lot of young adults who don't know the story about Walnut Street. People Some people turn their nose, but we remember, right, George? We remember Walnut Street. And, uh, and, uh, it was a a wonderful place to be. It was second to Cherry Street. It was alive and well and some of you might have seen the video that we did and we're getting ready to update it and, uh, add some more exciting things to it. So, um, at this time, I would like to present to you, uh, our our descendant of the blues, uh, pioneer, uh, Houston Stackhouse. Uh, the second as they say, Stack II, and his lovely wife.
16:53[clears throat]
16:57
Houston Stackhouse II Thank you, Phyllis. First, I'd like to give honor to God. My father, my mother. Without them, this wouldn't be possible. I'd like to give thanks to the mayor, city council, Walnut Street Group for this opportunity to speak on behalf of my father, my family, and another opportunity to speak on behalf of my father and put his name out. For years I've tried to make people aware of my father and his contributions to music. I've held positions as president of the Blues Foundation, which was an international group. It's located in Memphis. I held three terms as the president of that. I was president of Sonny Boy Blues Society here in Helena. Governor Jim Guy Tucker appointed me to the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame board years ago. I was on the uh board of Main Street Helena, which at that time owned Sonny Boy Well Soybean King Biscuit Blues Festival. I was co-chairman of at that time of the King Biscuit Blues Festival. I've never stopped trying to try to uh put my father's name in a position where people could recognize him and understand contributions he made. My dad was a quiet man. He didn't talk about what he did. He just showed people what he could do. He never was a front man, he was a back man. He played behind people. He never wanted to be out front, to be known as the star. He wanted to help other people shine. And I guess that's been my role ever since I've been out here. I've been a music promoter. James Morgan and I, we had a production company. We booked bands and put on shows. At the end of shows, we paid our entertainers and they bought hamburgers and bought steaks and I couldn't buy anything but a pack of peanut butter crackers and a Coke. But I was satisfied because my entertainers were well compensated. I believe in supporting people. So, when Phyllis asked me if I would be a part of the Walnut Street Group, I didn't hesitate. I wanted to help. Phyllis and I, we People may not believe it, but we were old Sunday school uh people. We belonged to Centennial Church. I wanted to help, just like I've always wanted to help Helena. And I believe this will help Helena as well. Everything you can do positive will help Helena. But getting back to why I'm here, my dad, of course, he played on KFFA radio. He was one of the King Biscuit Boys. He played with Sonny Boy Williamson. James Peck Curtis. He played with Dudlow Taylor. He played with Willie Love. Robert Lockwood, Jr. Sonny Payne, he used to always tell me, and Sonny, man, he was he was knowledgeable. He would call me every chance he get when he see me somewhere. He said, "Stack, they don't give your dad enough credit. Your daddy was the man." He said, "They just don't give him enough credit." I thought about it, and that encouraged me a lot to want to get out there and really push myself and make people aware of who my dad was. One story I'm going to tell you about that really opened my eyes to who my dad was. When I was a young kid, I don't even think I was a teenager yet. I didn't listen to the news that much, but the news was on one day. And I know everybody heard the song Rainy Night in Georgia. Old Brook Benton, he made it famous, but he didn't write that song. This guy by the name of Tony Joe White. He put out the little uh little green apples. He was talking, he's being interviewed, and they asked him, said, "Uh who are some of the people that inspired you to write the music you wrote?" And he was naming out a list of people. He said, "There's one person that you probably don't even know of, you probably never heard of." He said, "A blues man by the name of Houston Stackhouse." I turned around and looked at TV. I said, "What?" Nobody was in the house with me. That started me to paying attention to my dad. Cuz now I hadn't seen my dad until then. I saw my dad in a different light. Another thing, my dad used to come home and tell my brother, "Yeah, I been out with Ike Turner." Ike Turner. Turn. I said to myself, man, actually I said, "Look, uh excuse me, sir." I said, "Uh my son would like to get Ike Turner's autograph. You think that's possible?" Well, mind you there, Ike Turner had been King Biscuit the year before. And he was a butt hole. Couldn't nobody talk to him. I told my son, I said, "I don't know if we're going to be able to get his autograph cuz he was difficult King Biscuit last year." So, his keyboard player said, "Well, I don't know." He said, "What's your name?" I said, "My name is Houston Stackhouse." He said, "What? What?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "The guitar player's son?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Stack, you're daddy." I said, "Yeah." He said, "Man, he said, 'Your daddy used to be over there clocking me and Ike all the time, man. Used to be over there with all the time.'" I looked at him. He said, "Well, he's going to want to talk to you." Made me see my daddy in a different light. And I knew I had a tough road to hoe. I knew I had to get out there and put my dad's name out there so people would know who my dad was. People in the blues industry knew my dad. People around here didn't. I had to make people in Helena, West Helena know who my dad was. My dad played with folks like Jimmy Rogers, Sammy Lawhorn, Earl Hooker, Willie Love, Roosevelt Sykes. Give you an idea about Mr. Roosevelt Sykes. He was considered to be the father of the modern blues and piano style. He was born in Helena, Arkansas. A lot of us don't even know that. And he developed his piano style from piano players in the Helena area in 1920s. And in 1925, Sykes met Leothus Lee "Pork Chop Green while Green was playing piano in West Helena. See, folks don't know that. And then, by the night in mid-1930s, Helena was the blues capital of the Delta. And Sykes played in gambling dens along Walnut Street and the side streets closer to the river. That just goes to show that that was before KFFA King Biscuit Time. So, Walnut Street had an important part to play in the blues. Helena was the blues capital. So, I say that to say we've got the history. All we're asking for is for people to support us in what we're doing. We talk about generations. My child, he's a third generation musician. I'm the second in line. I played at music cuz I didn't play it. I played at it. Last time I played music was 1976. I was in the um orchestra at Phillips College. I needed that one credit to get my little degree so I can get out of there and never picked up an instrument again. And the way I managed to get that uh uh scholarship was uh from my former band director. He was uh the director of the college uh orchestra at Phillips College, and uh he saw me walking campus. He says he says Mr. Haggins, he said I I need a concert bass player. Are you available? I said, man, I don't play music anymore. He said, but I need you. I said, well, I'll think about it. It was getting close to time for that last semester, and I needed that one credit. I went and found him. I said, was that full scholarship still available? And see, I needed to pay for those books, too. So, I needed that that scholarship. He said, well, that scholarship I had is gone. He said, but tell you what, this is my dad. All you who don't know him, and and this is him on my church, too. We honor him as much as we can. This is uh the original stack. That's what I call him, the original stack. And this is Philip of third in line musician. But, the original stack and third in line musician, they were the most talented in the family that I know of. And if there's anything that I could do to manage in any kind of way recognition for them, then that's my job. I'm going to do it. Because they deserve it. And all they ever tried to do when they were here was to do their best, and they were good at it. So, in closing, I will say whatever we can do to promote Walnut Street, and whatever support can be given by by city of Helena and any other entity we'd appreciate it. And on that note, I'll say thank you for your time. And may God bless.
28:58
Unidentified Thanks. Thank you. We're there.
29:03
Unidentified Next we have George Howard, who is on the board of West Side United. And then Dr. Calvin. We're collaborating with Delta Magic Company.
29:16
Unidentified Good evening.
29:19
George Howard° Uh I didn't go to Centennial Church. I uh I'm a How can I say I was a little gypsy that came out of Oklahoma City into the old West Helena area in 1965. And I was in the last black class of uh Eliza Miller High. We didn't have that much entertainment coming up. We would watch the Ed Sullivan Show. And with the Shindig, 16, 17 years old.
29:56
Unidentified Drinking.
29:56
George Howard° Drinking. We were That's how we had fun back in the day. Wasn't any violence. Nobody had any guns or anything like that. We were right down there on Walnut Street where we all were friends. They were the juke joints going on. They call them juke joints now, but they were just jamming places for us like House Place, uh Kale's night spot, the teenage club. Some of y'all probably been in there.
30:24
Unidentified Yes, sir.
30:24
Unidentified Those were the places that we went.
30:26
Unidentified Amen.
30:27
George Howard° We had fun down there. If we have a little brawl or something, the next day at school, hey, we were back friends. It wasn't like it is now. I'm just letting y'all reminisce what we went through back there. Those were fun days. We need to bring some of that back and we need to bring that history that we have at at the on Walnut Street and let everybody know about it. Let the world know about it. What you do down in the country. This is where where everybody can get along and do things together. And the historian, Ms. Phyllis Hammond, is the one of the ones that's bringing it out. And I want y'all to know that when you see her, you need to talk to her. You can tell the history. I can see Mr. Granville Miller's your your uncle, your father. My mother worked with with your dad. She was LPN up at the hospital. And she worked hard. We worked hard. Everybody down here were hard working people. And that's what we need to get back to down here. And I want to say bye. Thank you.
31:47
Kyron Williams° Good afternoon, everybody.
31:48
Unidentified Good afternoon.
31:50
Kyron Williams Uh my name is Kyron Williams. I'm the program manager of Delta Magic and uh we will be supporting with the Walnut Street project with supporting uh purchasing the uh signage for the like the marker, the street marker. Um the day uh September 5th, uh we will be giving tours to uh through Guess Music and the Walnut Street District. And lastly, uh we will be supporting by collaborating with other organizers to promote and celebrate the Walnut Street stories. Thank you.
32:30
Phyllis Hammons° So, we — so, we uh, we're still building and creating uh for that weekend. We hope that you will approve of of our events and the whole effort. We're really excited about it and people uh — uh this one lady said that said to me, "If I had known all this was going on I'm — they coming, they they say they coming home. They coming home." And that's what we want to, we want people to come home and reminisce and also to help build Walnut Street, and and in our video we made we said Walnut Street moving forward. We're not just focusing on the on the history but we're also focusing on moving it forward and people have all kinds of ideas, and and honorable mayor I do hope in the council that some of these ideas will come to fruition. Perhaps we need to have a community meeting at some point and talk about. And I told them I said now I'm just re — discovering the hidden history of Walnut Street. My task is not to move it forward. I have some ideas but we're still digging deep and I just want to thank the team that's volunteering. We not getting paid any money for doing this. We're doing this because we care about our hometown and we want to bring Helena back. So I want to thank personally um the Stackhouse's, uh George who is my sidekick and and buddy, and we're — and uh there are some other individuals that could not be here tonight. So we really appreciate if you will approve this.
34:17
Unidentified Excuse me.
34:18
Unidentified Yes.
34:21
Houston Stackhouse° Excuse me. I omitted one thing. T-shirt — I forgot to mention that this is a project that my wife started. I'd like to introduce her to the council. Kimiko Stackhouse. This is her project. She did all of this herself. I did not have to put a gun on her. I did not have to threaten her. She took it on her own. So, Kim, could you just stand up, please? I — I get long-winded and I tend to overlook some things, but she's the one that came up with the design for the T-shirt, and she took the ball and she ran with it. So, I just won't — didn't want to leave her out. And I didn't think about it until I sat down. So, as you can see, sometimes you sit on your brain and it came to me when I sat down. But, uh, this is her T-shirt design. So.
35:14
Unidentified And we'll be selling — they'll be selling —
35:16
Kimiko Stackhouse° Well, kudos to you that he sat on his brain and that he gave me kudos. Because before Phyllis called him with her project, I told him that I wanted to do something based on something that happened a couple years ago. And I wanted to bring it to fruition. And thank God, I feel like the only thing that's a failure is not a try. And he's right. When I wanted him to be behind me, he was like, "Oh, yeah, whatever." Like he said, "Mhm."
35:56
Houston Stackhouse° I just told her whatever she wanted to do, just go ahead and do it.
35:59
Kimiko Stackhouse° And uh, I got him behind him and he was like, "Okay, that's your project." I couldn't light a fire up under him like I wanted to light the fire up under him, but he was like, "Oh, okay, whatever. You you you have at it, you know." So, I was like, "Damn, can't get no satisfaction. Can't get no respect." But, uh, I got it. And I had some people that helped me during the Blues Festival that knew about his dad. They knew the history. And I'll name them. I — there's Carla, uh — what is Carla's last name? Carla Robinson, I think that's her name. And Mr. Wes Horner. Mr. Wes Horner, he was very very very helpful. They welcomed me down there last year. I told him what I wanted to do. I got with them, and they said they'd do anything to help me, and I — and they did. They gave me a prime spot down there at the Blues Festival last year. I couldn't get him to come up with a — the reason we're with this design here is because there's a picture that's in my living room that's on my wall. That's all I had of his dad and the stories that he told me. But I wanted to do something to support him. And at the last minute, he was like, "Oh, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it." So I was like, "Okay, I got this picture, and we got it done." So — whatever y'all can do because his dad deserves it. He — he does, because as they were saying, I remember that man playing that little harmonica, the guitar. About five or six things I remember his dad playing when I was a kid, you know? So Mr. Stackhouse deserves this. He — he does, and she lit a fire up under him. So thank you for lighting that fire up under him and bringing this out to you guys, and whatever y'all can do to support him. Thank y'all, because I feel like he does — I was born here. I want Helena back. Okay? I want us back where when we were kids coming up and we had something to do here. I looked at Clarksdale and and the Blues Festival last year, you know? And I look at other cities in Memphis, and and I hear people that say they don't want to come back here because there's nothing to do. I haven't seen my son in like 6 years because he says, "Mom, I don't have anywhere to stay down there. I don't have any hotels." So we need to do something to get Helena back. Whatever we can do, whatever events we can have, whatever things we can do to generate some money and bring some cleanliness and some some peace, and what George said, people getting along here with one another, we need to do that as a community because this little community used to thrive. Helena West Helena, we had things to do. So, I just want people to know what Helena had. I don't want it to be all the bad things that were said about Helena. When I know anything about Helena, somebody got to call me from Memphis or Atlanta or something to say, "Oh, what's going on in Helena?" I live right here. And I don't know a lot of the bad things that go on in Helena, but Helena is no different than any of the big cities, because they're killing one another here right here in Helena, and there's only 10 of us down here, probably about 25 of us in here right now, but my point being there's murder here in Helena, you know, so I want Helena to be good for good things. So, kudos to everybody that's trying to do something that that loves Helena and wants us to not just fall over in the river and disappear. We're not going anywhere. Helena is here to stay. This is home for a lot of us, you know, some of us came back. Some of us didn't come back. But this is home for a lot of us, you know, and [clears throat] I want us to see, do great things here in Helena. So, thank you guys for listening to all of us, everything that was said, everything that was presented. And I hope y'all can do whatever y'all can do. We all, if we get together, you know, there's power in numbers, we can make some things happen. Thank you guys for listening.
39:59
Phyllis Hammons° One last thing I want to introduce Alyssa Advance. Uh — I want you to know that uh Helena was very well represented at the um Folk Life Festival in North Little Rock. Uh, um, Mary Ann Goldsberry and her grandson and group uh sang, and then we were there talking about Walnut Street. And they had this place they called on the porch, and we just sat on the porch, and it started at 5:00. Do you know what time we left? At 7:00. People had so many questions about Walnut Street. They had heard of of Walnut Street, but they didn't know anything. And Lisa went. And she — we were the both of us work together to make it happen. So I just wanted to present Lisa.
40:49[laughter]
40:50
Unidentified She's on the—
40:50
Unidentified That was real nice. I was impressed. It was a — assistant executive assistant to a CEO at Southern Bank. I think it's Southern Bancorp from Little Rock. They had actually sent her to come listen to Phyllis that Saturday, and it was really really hot, but I was amazed at the people that came through to listen, and you'd be amazed at the people that are interested in the history of Walnut Street and the blues, cuz y'all — blues have affected the world. And a lot of that started right here and we need to embrace history. We really do. So that's all I got to say.
41:29
Unidentified Thank you very much.
41:31
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) Thank you. If I might say, I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled the fact of Walnut Street project, and I think it ought to go on record that this city council support you wholeheartedly, 100%, in the project that you're doing. I was born on Walnut Street in 19 — in 1938. So that you can tell how old I am now. I usually don't — when my grandfather came to America in 1892 and he chose Walnut Street as his home at the corner of Walnut and Elm Street, where I was born, in that two-story building upstairs. That building still there today. It was built in 1921. And I sold the building, but I have many many memories of Walnut Street and grew up during the war at the corner of Walnut Street and Elm Street. That was my home. And I remember the Plaza — I mean the theater — on Walnut Street. I remember all those things that happened down there on Walnut Street in the — in the beginning of the blues, in those early days during the 40s is when I recall Walnut Street, and it was fantastic. It was wonderful. And I think it ought to be on record, and I propose that we accept these proposals that they have extended tonight, at this — in this council supports their project wholeheartedly.
43:21
Unidentified Thank you.
43:24
Unidentified I second.
43:25
Unidentified A second? Thank—
43:26
Unidentified So I move that we accept these—
43:28
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Yeah, we have a second. Madam Clerk, will you call the roll, please?
43:33
Roll call Roll-call vote — Adrian Messina: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Joe St. Columbia: yes; Dr. Kyle Miller: yes. Clerk's count: 6 yes.
43:43
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Motion passes. Thank you all for the presentation and and your passion. We thank you.
43:48
Unidentified Thank you.
43:54
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Our next order of business at this time is we have Ms. Shirley Garner here to approach the city council, and this is in regards to water — ink — water bill increase. So at this time may come up, Ms. Gardner.
44:35
Shirley Garner Some of the other places in here are familiar to me, and this is Stackhouse. Of course, my dad worked with you in certain areas for many of years. Um, I, too, in my younger days spent a little time down on Walnut Street hanging out, eating pig ears, and that type of thing, going and getting a few um tamales from Pasquale's. Um, that brought back a lot of history. And then, also sadness at the same time. So, I'm kind of like them. I want to see us have home back. I know that we won't get 100% back to where we were, but I do know together we can do it. Not just for Walnut Street, but for the city.
Um, I'm a little saddened because I'm still not getting anywhere with my issues. And my — my main issue, I talked with Jackie at the water company. Um, after I found the Facebook page for the West Haven Water Company, I emailed it because in July, I didn't get a water bill. It was strange that I've not gotten a water bill in all these years, after I came to the city council meeting and spoke about my issues. I didn't get a water bill, and it was coming close to time for me to pay it. And having just had my water cut off and um, she said, "Let me check into that." So, weeks later, I called her. And she said, "Well, we went ahead and gave you a credit, a $30 credit." Cuz when I was talking to her, I told her I said, "Hey, for 2 weeks out of both of — well, 2 weeks, a week out of both of those months — um, I had been out of town in the hospital. So, weren't nobody in my house. So, now my water bill has gone up with nobody in the house using water. That struck me strange." Then the month that I came in here and talked to you guys, it went up the next month. And I'm out of town for a week. Nobody's at my house. I don't have leaks. So, she gave me credit for the uh — for $30 for that second month that couldn't be explained. But um, that $323 that was taken from me, there was no explanation. She couldn't explain why my tenants who hadn't paid bills in 90 days didn't have those charges on their bills, but I did. She couldn't explain how their water wasn't cut off for 90 days of non-payment. But you cut mine off when I'm current and actually have a $40 credit. We still haven't figured that out. I want to know. I want to know why those tenants didn't have a late fee, didn't have all those things that was added on to mine, that cost me $323 for water.
Um, I also talked to her about the sewer issue. I said it was brought up that meeting prior — Larry Delk had spoke about some sewer issues he had. And Mr. Saeed had said they gone over and they had fixed that. I said, "But it was said that the — the machine you need was broken." Well, Attorney Valley had told me that Mr. Saeed said he had went over and he didn't see anything. But my rear cameras reflect differently. Mr. Saeed never went over. When Mr. Saeed sitting here and say, "Miss — Miss Garner, I've been trying to get in touch with you and I really want to talk to you," he still really hasn't gotten in touch with me. So, how badly did he want to talk to me? How badly does he want to solve this issue? But what Jackie did tell me is, "Oh, they misspoke in the meeting. That issue wasn't fixed for him. They got the machine back one day and it broke and it had to go back the next. That's the reason he hadn't been to your house." Oh. So, now my question is, did we fix his or did we not fix his, or is it mine that's been over? July makes it a full year that I paid $540 to a plumber that says this is the city's issue and I can't flush my toilets in my house. If the — if the hole is covered because the sewer backs up into the face bowls and the toilets. Miss Davis is a block over from where you live. You know exactly where that house is at. We've grown up as neighbors for all our lives.
I don't understand why we can't do those things? I don't understand how I have all these — counties for water bill that was paid, but a tenant that actually didn't pay it, water was able to stay on for 90 days, that caused me thousands of dollars worth of damages, which goes to when I asked the mayor to cover this, because the city was negligence. You got a water manager, a water director, a supervisor, and a salesman, and out of all them, I said, uh, "You were out yesterday. I said, what happened to the meter?" Uh, "I wouldn't — I wouldn't — wouldn't come on me to see the day I cut on meters. I don't — I don't do this, and I was over here looking." But, I said, "So, you came here, went in the ground and looked, but couldn't place the meter." "You was just riding by reading meters." That's what he said he was doing. But, he came looked at the hole, but he couldn't put the meter in that day. So, that particular day I asked him, I said, "Well, how long will it take you or whatever?" He was very rude. He had his phone on his pocket, and it was blasting music. So, I'm looking around, cuz I had some other people out there. I'm like, "Is this cool? Y'all cut — cut that off so I can hear what we're discussing." "Oh, that's my phone." I'm trying to have a conversation with you about business, and you have music blasting out your phone, stopping us from being able to hear each other. I take issue with that.
Then I had everything done, called back to the water company. Spoke to Jackie within 2 days and asked the water — for her to have the water cut off, because I didn't want a $600 water bill for 24 hours. I don't know if the water's off or not. I haven't received anything from them. I probably should have called her today, but I had a lot of other things I was doing. But I — I — I just want to know, how do we communicate with each other? I don't want to holler at people. I don't want to yell. I can be very mean. I can be very rude. I have a motto which says, I treat people how I want to be treated. But at the same time, I can treat you how you treat me. Which one do you want? It's not godly to have to talk to people crazy. It's not respectful when you're asking a person, in the best way that you know how, to communicate with you, and they would let — rather let music play on their hip than to have a conversation with you about what they're doing. Get no respect nowhere else, I'm going to get it at my house.
You're looking at me acting like you stunned, you have not heard of it. Y'all look — we cannot not know that this is how our people at the water department are conducting themselves. We cannot not know this. None of you all have seen or heard this video, or heard about this worker? Wow. So, we're keeping things — they're keeping things pretty, pretty quiet. I'm going to make sure I get that video to you, because someone should have been made aware of that. And whoever those persons were, because it was two. One showed out more than the other one, but the second person had the nerve to follow him up to those people's doorsteps, to their porch, screaming and yelling. With the mom not at home, she's on her camera — her doorbell camera caught this. And she says, "Stay there till I get there. I'm on my way home." When they knew she wasn't in the house and was on the way home, they got in their vehicle and disappeared. They shouldn't even have a job today. And I — I know for a fact they called the water company and complained about what happened. So, I just wonder why it got no further. But, I did tell that parent, because it hurt my heart to see a special needs child being talked to like that. And another young man retreating in the house, and you throw the shovel or whatever it was, and run up on them, and tell them about what you'll do to them. That's who we got working for us? If those are the people that we have working for us, we — we won't never get him in the back. Never.
Now, I'm going to go [snorts] to prove who she was to the prosecuting attorney. And said it didn't make no difference because she wasn't going to do nothing anyway. Well, what did you ask me for them for? Then, he says, "Oh, we can't say it's her." But, what he didn't know is when I was talking to him, because I know what he does, I was audio recording. He's who identified the young lady on the video. This is who it is — he and Detective Lawson recorded. But, then when it gets to the police department, it takes you 9 days to do a three-sentence police report. And when I finally find out — you never sent a video of her walking past the yard back and forth. I went there and went to the police department to sign trespassing, on a breaking and entering, and some more stuff, and was told I could not. I got a woman on video that the police identified. I didn't know her name. I called her black attack. Cuz she'd be attacking folks all over the city. Um, Joseph told me that he called over and he talked to Amy Green, and Amy Green did in fact tell him that Cliff Sanders never gave him a video. Well, how are you — I got the conversation recorded where he told me that she said she couldn't prosecute because she did not get all the information. Now, when I asked you that here in a forum, we don't want to talk about that. I don't think so. Call a spade a spade. You know what you told me — that Amy Green said she did not have the videos and she could not accept them from you.
Now, when I go home, I'm going to go to book of faces and I'm going to start uploading conversations, and I'm going to help some people get their memory back. Cuz this what I don't like. Don't tell me one thing, then when you get in front of somebody else it's something different. Like when I see that you wrote that letter — that the man letter sitting in your office and told me to go give it to Sandy — that none of you all never received. Did you receive it the second time? Cuz Sandy said she sent them all to you. Did she not? Nobody — y'all didn't get it again? Nobody? Y'all looking at me but nobody's saying nothing. So, we — we — you didn't get the letter? I mean, if they got it, it would be a yes. If they didn't, it would be a no. And so, this is what our city council is doing today. Nobody is saying, "Yes, I got the letter. No, I didn't get the letter." Sandy, did you send the letter?
57:52
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey Yes, ma'am.
57:53
Shirley Garner Sandy sent them. Y'all — Max, I'm sure you didn't open your email, because that's what you told the chief of staff the other week, that you didn't open your email.
58:03
Councilwoman Maxine Miller (Ward 1)° I don't recall.
58:04
Shirley Garner You don't recall it? So, this is my next question. What do you all have emails for, if you don't look at them, don't pay attention?
58:13
Councilwoman Maxine Miller (Ward 1)° No, I — I know, I'm saying that I read my email regularly. I did not have—
58:16
Unidentified Yes, I don't recall it.
58:17
Shirley Garner So, Sandy, they're saying that you lying. I'm — I'm just putting it out here today. I'm trying to figure out who doing what.
58:24
Unidentified I don't—
58:25
Shirley Garner° Cuz I really need to know, cuz at this point, I'm looking around at table and everybody suspicious.
58:31
Unidentified Ms. Gone — I would, I would just — I would just like to say and interject really quickly. Um, personal matters from citizens usually don't go to city council members. If somebody comes in for an issue over at their property with grass, with a car, um, we've had a member, I think, the last two meetings, or a resident the last two meetings, that's come in front of the public, or the council addresses publicly. But, generally those things do not go to the council.
58:55
Shirley Garner Is generally what I want — you all to do what you're doing now. Not answer questions and say, "Generally, this is what we do." Because, as soon as I came to the last meeting, my father-in-law had a car — belong to his data, antique car — up under his carport. And your code enforcer, as soon as I made you mad, came over there and put a sticker on that car. And I'm telling you, before God and everybody else, I wish he would move it. Cuz you got a whole two blocks — right down the street, I believe, from where you stay at. Been there for 15 years. What he over there for? Go move them cars. Go move them. Because that man ain't bothering you. My father-in-law is dead. And there's no reason, out of all the houses and abandoned cars, for you to go — after I say what I said about you, the code enforcer shows up over there and puts a sticker on it. It's a nuisance. It's a whole lot of stuff a nuisance. You're a nuisance. And then for everybody to stand here before me tonight and pretend they never got that letter, or say they didn't, somebody lying. Or everybody lying. But I'm going to deal with it in a matter. And Don — that laugh he does — it's on purpose. But I'm not going to let him piss me off. I'm going to let him smile, because I'm going to have the last one. And you can believe that.
1:00:34
Mayor Joseph Whitfield I don't know if anybody from the body has questions from Ms. Gardner. If not, we can move on. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. — thank you, Ms. Gardner. We'll move on to our next order, and I — I will say um, I did make a note of the things that you listed as as related to um your experience. And so we'll have a conversation as it relates to uh customer care.
1:00:56
Shirley Garner° Who is going to explain—
1:00:57
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Internally, within the departments that will be responsible for your concerns. So, we'll — we'll have an internal — I made — I just want you to be aware. That conversation would happen within the department. So, to be clear, I made a note of your um — of your concerns, and for all citizens, like all citizens, we're going to make sure that we address those within the appropriate departments. Thank you again, Ms. Garner. Our next order of business, moving right along, is a water department update. This consists of two things, a project list update as well as uniform proposals. And at this time, Mr. Rose will come up to give us those — those items.
1:01:41
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Hey, good evening.
1:01:41
Unidentified Good evening. [clears throat]
1:01:56
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Okay. I'm just going to start at the top on this, that's on the agenda, with the water department update. Project list, B Street. B Street, we are beginning some street opening repairs as of last week, and concrete will literally be poured tomorrow. This is just the beginning opening of the street. This is after heavy excavation took place to replace the sewer line. Now, there's still some work that needs to be done with a storm drain that is east on B Street of the construction site, which had the road blocked off for over a year now. We're not going to let that hold up reopening up that street. And so, work has begun on cleaning that site up and beginning the first — well, initially we're going to do a phase approach, but the second part of the phase, I would say, is just getting the street to where traffic can go through and don't have to go around, using Miller — or I believe that's Market Street — to um, to get around, and open up driveways as well that has been blocked off due to that construction area. And so, that's for B Street, but work is being done. That street literally should be open for through traffic by the end of this week.
1:03:19
Unidentified Okay.
1:03:20
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose So, that's some good progress on that. Oak Forest, um, there's been a report of sewage flowing um, near address on Oak Forest, uh, through the back ditch that's in the woods back there. Um, this sewage — uh, pastor, I — I — I confirmed that it's definitely sewage in there. It's not directly on um, private property or customer owned property. Um, it's — it's in a public area, but it's been reported to ADEQ and office of water quality, um, that we are aware and working on this particular issue. Um, as of today, I've located the potential source to this sewage leak. And so, we will begin excavation tomorrow, uh, morning, to address the sewer line that I found that is broken in the woods, um, pretty much behind the Stonebrook neighborhood in the Midland Heights area. And so, we have multiple sewer lines that's in the thicket of these woods, are pretty hard to get to, and really hard to track if there's a manhole or a sewer line broke. It takes some time. Um, it takes a lot of effort and strategy to go into these woods and safely and find out what's going on, then gather, come up with a plan to actually excavate and get machine and equipment back there to do the repairs that's required. And so, um, but just for this particular um issue, we are on top of it, and hopefully this will be resolved by tomorrow, once we complete the excavation of the sewer line that I found that is broken.
If I have any questions, don't feel free to uh, to shoot them out there. Um, I'm going to move on to ANRC funding. Now, uh, with our ANRC funding, uh, you know, this is our uh, big loan source of funding on addressing the rehab of our entire water system in Helena and West Helena. Uh, currently, we are in the planning and development, planning and specs phase of West Helena and the Helena plant, but that's more so uh, addressing the critical areas needed on the rehab at the West Helena plant. And so, these areas are going to include addressing the filter aeration system, and either redesigning or rehabbing um, what we currently have. Working on the backwash tank, uh, which is the tall tank that's uh, white, right in the center of uh, West Helena. Rehab that tank, and and bringing it back to uh, its full use. Rehabilitating the clearwell, uh, this is where the treated water is stored before it goes to the storage tank and is sent through to you all. Those are three main areas that, as of now, we're getting close to a plan A or plan B, and making a decision on what's going to happen moving forward with those three particular areas, uh, with the treatment system, okay? And so, we're in full swing of that, uh, which is good.
And now, the next — this particular, with the ANRC uh, funding, and uh, me and Mr. Will and uh, be presenting something uh, sooner than later, uh, when it's official, is doing the smaller loan to do the rehab to the backwash tank. And so, actually fully uh, rehabbing that tank while we're doing the uh, plant rehab, and um, getting that back in use, or maybe even repurposing that use, uh, moving forward for our treatment system process.
1:07:16
Unidentified Excuse me, you keep saying um back while saying we're talking on the west side, correct?
1:07:22
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I'm I'm sorry. I was uh definitely referring all of these um areas that we're working on is the West Helena Treatment Plant. Okay? And so, we're uh in full swing of that on the planning and spec phases uh with the ANRC funding. Now, moving to the DRA funding, um this is going to be entirely for the West He- West Helena area as well. It's beginning the line um distribution replacement. Now, um the contract that has been accepted and awarded to A&B Construction. And there's not a official date set, but a pre-construction meeting uh will be set soon, very soon. Uh but, we're right in the cusp of actually beginning the construction on this work. And so, as soon as I have a official start date, I will provide that. Uh but, it's going to be very soon. We're already working on staging equipment, and the plans are already together, and we're definitely going to see work on the ground very soon in the West Helena area on line replacement. Okay.
1:08:33
Unidentified Do you have an estimate how much line you're replacing?
1:08:35
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Uh it's going to be 23,000 ft of 2-in galvanized line. Okay? And so, that's going to um and once again, this is the first phase as we get this project underway. Going to shift to Helena doing the same. We're working on maybe 23 or 25,000 ft of line. And back to West Helena to continue to pick different areas that we have located for critical line replacement that's needed. So we look forward to this being ongoing and a continuing funding uh to be able to get this done. Next item we have is US 49 bridge line relocation project. This is a um project under our dot of the bridge replacement um that they're doing. So they're re-routing that bridge and we're having to um re-route uh sewer line and possibly a water line. Well, no, we're for sure re-routing a water line and sewer line that's going to be in the pillar area of where they're relocating the bridge. And so this work, there's not a exact date set for this yet uh but AB construction um will most likely be doing the work um They're currently selecting an awardee for the work on the DRA grant project. More likely going to be also helping us do this relocation line project uh which will not take long at all. And so soon as uh we get rolling past the pre-construction meeting with the DRA grant, I will be able to inform you all on when that is going to be wrapped up um with the A-dot bridge project, which will be fairly soon um at our our dot has been um ready to get some things done and been semi on hold because we have to uh just make sure our sewer force main is secure and our water line is relocated once they start to begin to put their pillars down um on Old Little Rock Road, okay? And so that is all in play and I'll be able to just like I said, give some exact dates and pretty much it's going to be um this bridge location line relocation is pretty much going to probably just be a if max two or three days project for it to be done and complete and back in service. Uh I have uniform proposals. Okay, so this is a item that's been on the agenda a few times and let me go back. I've attempted to um provide the view of two contracts with Cintas Group contract proposals that I wanted you all to look at, but what ended up happening only one uh service agreement was printed out and I wanted you all to be able to see the cost comparison, but instead of handing these out, what I can do is just read out the numbers that we have. And so once again, this is for the uniform for employees to have uniform um uniforms I mean since I would say it's almost been six years I've been here. Um within the second third year of uh just my employment before I was in superintendent position, um there was no uniforms um given or provided and um the when I took the superintendent position, we were paying for a service we was not using with um I believe Aramark was the name. They're no longer in business now, um but it's been a while since the employees at the water department had uniforms. Um the current um uniforms that you may see myself in or few of my uh more tenured employees are uh literally ripped to shreds. They're trashed. I mean, washed them so many times, falling apart. Uh we're pretty hard on our own personal clothing and so um I I think it's really not only a requirement uh to have uniform. It's It's really important to get our guys uniforms and and when it comes to I know we have water trucks pulling up, but just to be in an actual service uniform is It's going to speak volumes.
1:13:02
Unidentified requirement by policy.
1:13:05
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Weather. Now, when it gets cold, we need jackets. You know, when it gets warm, we need short sleeves. And so, one um option that was presented that is going to be in these numbers that I'm going to present to sickness group is that they're going to be able to switch out, you know, when we need um jackets um or thicker wear when the temperature start dropping, uh they'll be able to provide that. That is all included in these initial numbers that I'm about to give. Um as well as shirt repair, as I mentioned. And I believe there's going to be like a weekly check-in. Um there's a accessible portable uh portal that new hires uh we have to grow the staff. I mean, that's that's when we're going to really start being able to address more issues um that we hear about, that's spoken about. It's having more personnel to be on site to address this issue. And so, just having a service that we can plug in numbers, boom, get uniforms made um would be a big help, you know, instead of just buying outright. Okay? And so, what we have here um is a 5-year agreement and a 3-year agreement. I'll start with the 5-year agreement first. [cough and clears throat] So, for the 5-year agreement, the price per week is $128.24. That's per week. Uh price per year would be $6,668.98. Uh price total over 5-year period this would be for $33,344.90. And um this is for this amount amount was tailored for, I believe, 12 employees. And so, this would just be the field staff. So, that's I mean, pretty decent when fully uniform in 12 12 employees. And this is a 5-year agreement. Now, the next is 3-year agreement. So, this is a shorter-term agreement. Price per week would be $142.52.
1:15:07[clears throat]
1:15:08
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Price per year be $7,391. And price over 3-year total doubt would be $22,000. Um $175.40. And so, clearly, um looking at this, the 3-year agreement seemed to be more um suitable for just cost-wise. It did seem to be actually a little cheaper. I thought it was going to be opposite with the 5-year. Um but like I said, that was my intention to show um a breakdown. And if you all would like to read this, I can pass it out. But this is just one agreement. This is not the cost comparison um of the weekly and uniform advantages, emblem, and pretty much everything. I kind of went into a little bit on what we'll be paying for with these amounts. And quality, I've showed more favoritism towards this particular um company because um they have good material. Um Through the sampling shirts that I saw and the style of shirts that we're going to go with are a little bit more dry fit, a little bit more breathable to wear. Um it's not as hot as cotton. And um and even the pants, um the durability of the pants seemed to be um a little thicker and just a bit better quality, which is in the price, for sure, but it'll last longer. And at the end of the day, I really feel our um our field staff deserve to have some some solid solid clothing to wear doing work. So, that concludes my pitch for the uniforms. Any questions?
1:16:50
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Does anybody have any questions? I I have a suggestion that I think um I don't want to speak for anybody, but I think uh it'd be good for us to see the other colors well to just compare both.
1:17:01
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that was definitely [snorts] my intention tonight was to provide that. And so, we can uh well, actually I'll do a better one um I can send this out email as well cuz I have both of these um
1:17:17[music]
1:17:17
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° in email format, so that can go out immediately so you just can see the cost comparison and the breakdown of what we'd be paying for.
1:17:26
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Are there any objections to that? Any objections?
1:17:34
Unidentified Mr. uh Rome, didn't we look at this before? Didn't
1:17:37
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° I I believe so. I I think
1:17:39
Unidentified Yeah, I thought we were going to approve this. We were just waiting on y'all to get back with us.
1:17:42
Unidentified Yeah, there was um I believe it was even on the agenda to wait for competitive bidding at a at a point, so I didn't know if you all was able to really look at it. Um these agreements tonight.
1:17:53
Unidentified Yeah. I thought we were just waiting on y'all to get back with us. Well, I don't remember where we left off. Cuz you guys came to us and then the fire department
1:18:03
Unidentified Right, and the landfill as well.
1:18:05
Unidentified And landfill as well. And it just kind of got shifted off the agenda. Yeah. I thought we had already approved this. Do we?
1:18:14
Unidentified We had We hadn't approved it. The ordinance was drafted, but
1:18:17
Unidentified Okay, no, not the not the ordinance. No, we did not We did not approve a mandatory ordinance for mandatory uniforms, but we did approve you guys purchasing. I thought I thought we did.
1:18:28
Unidentified No, we drafted a ordinance for to waive competitive bidding.
1:18:32
Unidentified Uh-huh.
1:18:32
Unidentified But at some point you all tabled it and we haven't addressed the issue again. I don't know if they were providing additional information.
1:18:38
Unidentified Okay.
1:18:39
Unidentified But all the
1:18:40
Unidentified those were tabled and we didn't come back to it yet.
1:18:43
Unidentified Body hadn't come back to it yet.
1:18:44
Unidentified Okay.
1:18:46
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° But, I have no problem sending this out. You know, I'll give us just a quick second just to prepare the prices, look at what we're actually um trying to move forward with, and then we can possibly make a decision.
1:18:58
Unidentified I I do believe we can make a decision by our next meeting, um given given the second set of numbers. I I I think so.
1:19:05
Unidentified For sure.
1:19:08
Unidentified I have an unrelated question.
1:19:10
Unidentified Yes, please.
1:19:10
Unidentified Considering the statements uh tonight by Mr. Shirley Garner, you mentioned B Street and Oak Forest.
1:19:16
Unidentified Mhm.
1:19:17
Unidentified Uh have you checked again on Corrine's Street, the property that she's talking about?
1:19:21
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Yes. Um that was actually um immediately done when me and you spoke. And it was brought to my attention that there was still an issue going on over there. Um we took our sewer jetter when it was available and [clears throat] ready. Um directly over to actually before the um mentioned um Larry Dell situation, and we found that that line was not collapsed. And we were able to ride our jetter to where the flow in that particular area that's coming down South Kenazo, which is uh behind the mentioned property, was flowing. Um so, that brought my conclusion that there's something possibly going on with the tap to the sewer main, uh which is is a common it's a common issue. I mean, when your service tap is obstructed or something is wrong, um we're responsible for repairing the main. And you could definitely have blockage [clears throat] in your own line, and the sewer line is still flowing, and we won't really be able to detect what's going on by jetting uh using our our jetting machine. And so, uh moving forward, I will revisit this and actually investigate a little further on um if the tap could literally just be pushed in, which could cause if if it's pushed in and it cause blockage in our main line, um but it could be collapsed and pushed in and we're just jetting right by and and don't even know. And so that could be the cause of sinking ground. And there's a could be basically a uh collapse or um breakage in the customer line as well. But uh between our investigation and um and working with local plumbers or whatever plumber that is uh tied particularly to that address or the other addresses, we can uh we can look at it and make sure, you know, our due diligence and that our, you know, city main is flowing and uh try our best to help resolve that situation. All right. And um did did you also speak to Quarterman? Cuz yeah, yeah, I I did. I I would rather share off-record.
1:21:27
Unidentified Yes, sir.
1:21:27
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Yeah, yeah, what uh what was was told on that uh particular situation. Um but like I said, I'm going to be looking into it and just to make sure uh we didn't miss anything uh because I'm thinking, like I said, the connection point of the sewer line and the customer line, it it could be something going on there that we may can help uh resolve sooner than later.
1:21:49
Unidentified One other thing, must add to the last meeting I asked you about the the new well and to ask you next time you come give another update. So I I was
1:21:58
Unidentified Uh okay, good. Yeah.
1:22:00
Unidentified Yeah, I would give us give us an update on the status of the new well.
1:22:03
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Yeah, for sure. That's what I want to leave the evening talking about. Uh now, update on the new well. Um okay, let me just back up. We We had this well put in service or online when it was officially sending water into the system in October of 2024. It was a glorious time. Brought us a little relief that we needed uh much at the time. And so, from October 2024 all the way to 2025, uh let's just say October Yeah, let's just really Let's say October, September, October 2025, we ran that well nonstop. Nonstop. We did our best to get the leaks down to the medium uh to a minimum to give the treatment plant a break. Basically, what I mean by giving the treatment plant a break is when the plant can cut off, wells cut off, high service pumps cut off. Everything cut off and rest. Uh unfortunately, we just did not get to that point. Um Well, we did, but not as much as we needed to be able to give that new well the break. And so, it ran nonstop until fall of last year. And we noticed it started um the flow coming into the plant started to drop. And so, when we noticed this, uh first thing the plant operator did was turn on our existing wells, which what we were running on previously to before the installation of the new well. Okay? So, around fall last year, we started running two additional wells along with the new well. This is what we had to do to keep up with demand and to keep filling the tank, to keep the plant cycling and doing what we needed to do uh our best as we could to address the leaks while this was all happening. Okay? So, we were able to get through the winter with this uh process of just new well, not by itself, but with the existing two wells running with the new well. What we noticed soon as the weather broke after we got through our freeze and was able to um just kind of breathe a little bit uh cuz the winter the weather was letting up, you know, getting a little bit warmer. Uh that's when we started doing our investigation on the new well, just to see what was going on. Uh that well was supposed to produce 1,200 at least 1,200 gallons per minute and what our plant needs to operate and be able to send water everywhere throughout the system, keep the storage tank full, keep the system cycling is at least over 1,200 gallons per minute. Okay, that's minimum. The plant is actually designed for 22 thousand gallons per minute. Our high service pumps that I'm always coming up here mentioning about, they're designed at minimum to push 1,600 gallons per minute. So, when we have little issues, it throws a lot off because our we're underperforming. We're still underperforming even with the new well. Okay, so when we noticed that the new well was not producing 1,200 gallons per minute, we did start running tests. I contacted Our first name was informing Mr. Whaling and his and his group, and he got in touch with Jeff Jones who actually did the installation of the well. Um I actually got Arkansas Rural Water involved as well, and this is around February going into March of this year, and to find out that the new well flow dropped um below 500. I'm just saying shortly. So, we were producing actually more out of our old existing wells that we've had cuz we let them sit for a while, and they were pretty much keeping up the flow to let us get anything out of the new well. Um and this is around March I would say we noticed that, okay, we we have an issue. Okay, so we're seeing that the new well was underperforming, and we pretty much primarily started running off three wells that we had before, our well seven, eight, and 10. And so, our system has literally been running off of those three wells um since earlier this year. And now our findings on the geological sample that was taken is two things. We could have a increase in the iron that's in the ground, that's in the spar, that's where we tapped into on a little bit more than 600 ft to tap into the aquifer to pull water with that particular new well. And so, not only here, but across the Delta, there's been reports of very high iron that is clogging up wells. And so, we're we're seeing that this is something that's just not an isolated situation. This is a geological situation as well. And so, not only is the iron possibly causing the well to underperform, we also have four wells that we're currently using, currently running, that's in a very uh small vicinity. It's it's in a
1:27:19
Unidentified close vicinity.
1:27:20
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Close proximity. Thank you. Thank you. And so, that could be another thing that we have to really look at. I know we were in a hurry to get more water into the system, but we're pulling really hard within a mile, 2-mi radius, if that, most. And so, now we're looking at moving forward on how do we address this well underperforming that we just spent a million dollars to get and got online and now we still use it, but just rarely, pretty much when our plant flow drops too low, backwashing needs to happen, or there's any type of emergency situation, we kick on that new well, and we were instructed to only use it with all the other wells. We cannot run that that new well by itself. We actually have to run all four wells at the same time to get the best production that we can out of that particular well. And so, now we're looking at a chemical cleaning. And this is to remove the iron, any blockage or clog that could be on the screen or where the water is coming through. Doing the cleaning to see if we can boost that production back up out of that particular well.
1:28:27[cough]
1:28:28
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Excuse me. And looking at doing a chemical cleaning on our well eight. Um and I'm backing up again a little bit. When we got the new well installed, initially, it was proposed that we get our other wells chemically cleaned while they're resting and then we wouldn't using them. And so, that didn't happen. Um not going to get into that. That's the past now. But, um we need that to happen now. At least be able to get one more get more production out of our existing wells that we're running constantly now and then moving to um do a treatment chemical treatment to our new well. And see what it you know, see what position that it put us in um moving forward, especially going into the winter, uh which is coming up pretty fast on us, okay? And so, this is just in discussion. This is what we're looking at doing on addressing this. Um but, the major action moving forward is planning on we need another well. And getting that process started. Okay. And so, Mr. Williams has informed me that he's already looking at selecting locations that will be outside of where we have our existing wells. And moving forward on that, which um from my understanding that the ANRC loan can cover uh a second well. That we've been planning anyway, but moving this up to a priority um that we're focusing on, you know, with the current issues that we're having.
1:30:00
Unidentified So, you answered every question that I was going to ask.
1:30:02
Unidentified Okay. Got you.
1:30:03
Unidentified We should we should I'm saying you answered, so to be clear, we need to start looking at a new well sooner rather than later.
1:30:11
Unidentified Yesterday.
1:30:13
Unidentified That's That's going to be the ultimate fix.
1:30:15
Unidentified What you're saying I'm remembering the same thing happening. Sounds like well number nine all over again. And
1:30:20
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Right. Right. And so, now with well number nine is abandoned. We're not using it. But it's essentially the same same cycle.
1:30:33
Unidentified Yes, sir.
1:30:33
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Again, this this is a Let's just say because I mean this well is not even 2 years old. But I think it's more so of a location thing. You know, well number nine is just across the way from where the new well is right now. And so, we really need to make sure that yes, it's going to be more expensive. It's going to be more challenging connecting a raw water line to the existing raw water line that's going into the treatment plant in West Helena. But we need to get out of that area so we're not exhausting that aquifer.
1:31:04
Unidentified But part of the reason why this was selected when we were under emergency circumstances where you had to have it done. And well number nine is right over by Jackson the Harley. And so, we had the boys and girls club here. And you wanted to tap into this a similar area to get the water as quickly as possible and we tried doing emergency circumstances.
1:31:22
Unidentified Right. Right.
1:31:22
Unidentified The expense is far greater for doing another well somewhere else.
1:31:27
Unidentified Far greater.
1:31:28
Unidentified And doing and running all those lines and that's more time consuming.
1:31:32
Unidentified Right.
1:31:32
Unidentified And so, we do need another well when we when the city contemplated doing this well under emergency circumstances we were informed by a Smith and Wyland that there were other wells that were needed all over West Helena we and Helena. And so, it's it's critical that we know what's going on with the wells but we also need to be planning for another well and and another well thereafter.
1:32:00
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Right. Right. So, just to recap, uh short-term is scheduling chemical treatment for the existing well eight that we're using uh constantly and the new well uh just to see if we can get more production out of it cuz it could just be built up with iron, we do a chemical cleaning, and we're we're rolling back at a higher volume coming to the treatment plant. Immediate is actually the beginning of process of getting the new well uh start well ground selected and that process started on moving that up from a year down the line to literally right now. We got to we got to go ahead and start planning that out and see if what's what's going to take for that to happen.
1:32:44
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Are there any other questions from the body at all?
1:32:48
Councilman Don Etherly (Ward 3) Yeah, I I I got one and this is a landmine grenade. I'll throw it out here. Everybody watching this meeting wants to ask questions about the water bills. That's the question on everybody's mind. The bills go from here to there and everywhere. And I don't expect you to have an answer uh at this point and they vary. Um mine varies. It might be one amount this month and the next month the usage shows on the bill that it's way up beyond what I could imagine. Um so, I just I just want to plant this seed. We need a way to assure people that these are being calculated properly. And we keep answering questions about this, but I don't think we're assuring anybody that's being that it's being calculated properly. And so, I just want to put that out your mind. I want to plant that seed. Uh and to that I would say sooner rather than later.
1:33:40
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose° Yeah, and uh I mean, I really don't have any uh objection of talking a little bit about that this evening. Uh now, it's not a all-in solution. This is not going to solve everyone's particular situation uh with the bill discrepancy or the high or low spike that you may see in bills. But one thing [clears throat] that I do want to assure you all that our meters are not entirely going bad or outdated. These meters that we have, and I'm particularly mentioning of the electronic meters that are mostly throughout the entire system, mostly the billing is coming through the electronic meters, have a 20-year lifespan, 15 to 20-year lifespan.
1:34:20[clears throat]
1:34:20
Water Superintendent Saeed Rose Um this is not saying anything wrong cannot happen, but I've been informed that when these meters were initially put in the ground maybe 6 or 7 years ago, eight You all may kind of recall when went through the process of getting the new electronic meters. Uh these particular meters were chosen for their longevity and and lack of need of troubleshoot or replacement. Okay? And so that was the first thing. Are our meters going bad? Or do we still have life to our meters? Can our meters be cali- calibrated? These particular meters that we're using are not You cannot calibrate them. There is a simple mechanism to where water flows through, it calculates. Now, if there's a blank screen or um basically you can't detect or see the reading on the electronic meter, we have warranty on them to where they can get sent in and replaced. Or if there's a blockage, maybe obstruction of a rock or maybe a little mud or something get caught in there, that can cause the meter to not read accurately of flow that's going through there. Uh that's one thing we just got to keep in mind. Now, with various situations of the billing, um one step I took upon myself is to actually go out and do readings myself. That's what I'm doing this month. I did some last month. And we're actually just looking at okay, uh to make sure our systems are working. I've updated um basically the tablets that the service techs use to get readings. And so, that's to make sure the equipment is working and pulling the best information that it can pull. Now, as I'm constantly assessing that, it's looking at what you all as customers are able to see. And so, one um I would say minor solution that I think can help us moving forward, um since we're not moving to replace all the meters, is actually using cellular read antennas. And bringing a cellular read antenna is basically just changing the antenna that's on the existing meter to where we still can get the information we need when we're doing readings with our tablet and our equipment. And you all would actually be able to download an app and see the usage through your phone. And so, I think that'll be some justice to okay, instead of waiting on us to come provide a profile or to figure out what's going on, you can actually see it yourself on your phone. And so, this is a service that Badger Meter can help us provide. Now, this can't all happen for everybody at once, but I think we slowly can phase these cellular uh devices onto these meters to to provide more of a balance of accountability on if we're getting the right readings or not. Okay? And so, what helps me to identify situations is pulling a profile to see the usage. Um usage spikes maybe at the middle of the night when you know you're asleep or you're not even at home, you we know there's something going on. And so, I know it's our job to provide the best information we can, uh but just with the limited staff, we're not able to provide profiles for everybody on the spot um as soon as it's requested, you know. And that's what we're working on. We're going to continue to work on that. But, I just wanted to put that out there. I think that's something we can look at providing to customers to you know, get some better information on what's going on with these meters. And we'll continue to check the meters. I mean, first thing, if it's any type of decimal off or just inaccurate reading, after a reread, of course replacing the meters, but I don't want to keep replacing the meters with the same meters that we maybe had at another site. I don't think that's doing us justice, you know, when it comes to getting the in and out removal read, which is how I really determine if your um if your usage or let's just say if if the meter is calculating accurately on the usage. That's the best method to do it. And so, I do propose that we move forward with getting some new meters. I did it last year, and now when we're looking at getting a new meter, I think it's a generation 3 or generation 2 now. They're going to read very accurate. They're designed a little bit more like the older meters, the copper meters with the reading dial, so you can actually see you see the dial spinning yourself. It's not a digital read, but it performs just
1:39:11
Chief of Staff Kevin Martin-Arnold Are there any questions based on the information that's been provided to y'all? Um today we operated with using the walk behind. We had to pull the commercial truck off of the commercial route to use that as the other residential truck. So, we used the 2-yard truck. Um I say we because I was out there. Um myself and Levon. Shout out to Levon. He um had me running. So, we were actually running some house to house, grabbing cans, dumping them in the overhead. And then overhead to take it up and dump it. Um we moved the boom truck to the commercial route, which means that there's now going to be a um gap in that debris and brush pick up. Um So yeah, just had to say we could use a couple of side loaders that would make it more efficient. Um you guys asked me to look for some more trucks. I did search for more trucks. Um we actually met with somebody from Tri-State Friday. Um he was able to identify three 2020 side loaders. They have about 250,000 mi. I know that mileage was a point of contention in terms of the trucks. He said they would fit within a price range. He just hasn't been able to give me any information um in regards to the price because apparently the dealers are still working out a trade for those vehicles. Um which still leads us to the ones that we have um found. Um you guys have been provided I mean provided with proof of operation. Um they work. They run. Um you asked for warranties. Um we were able to get a warranty from the one in Memphis. However, um I mean this is just a general warranty service. So like we could put the truck that we own right now on it if we wanted to. Only thing with that is that um again, this is something where trucks have to fall within 12 years old. So that kind of takes out that uh Michigan one. But um the other part of that is um it's saying that you can't have any codes on any of the trucks to be able to sign them up for the warranty. Again, we're talking about trucks that are like 11 years old, 150,000 mi. I'm sure they have at least some type of code that's going to pop up on it. I mean my truck is 6 years old. It has a check engine light on. I mean so that could be the deal breaker. I did ask that he if he could show proof of um no codes. Hasn't been able to get back to us on that one yet. Um yeah, so is there any other information you guys need from us in regards to that. Uh trash pickup has been pretty hard.
1:41:41
Mayor Joseph Whitfield I wanted to just add uh two things that weren't stated. 30 32 is a side arm, and that truck was temporarily repaired temporarily because it did um go back to overheating. That's been the issue with that truck. Um and then as well, what you also have on your table in front of you is the total for the uh auction the items the total that was proposed for the items that will be auctioned off from the sanitation yard, which I believe I'm not looking at it directly. I believe it's around $17,000.
1:42:13
Unidentified $17,500.
1:42:14
Unidentified 70, yeah. So, that does if we move with one truck at at least, that does cover essentially half the price of a truck that's priced at $30,000, a little more than half of that truck. And um we have attempted, as I just said, to go the route of repairing what we do have, and there's some uh issues that those trucks are still having.
1:42:38
Unidentified Thank you, David. I think it also is worth noting that I mean, we had a month of really good trash pickup. I think it shows that they are capable of performing well when they have the proper equipment. Side loader were part of that, and so that's why we are adamant about getting a couple of side loaders. And like you said, one would do. I mean, you guys would feel comfortable moving forward with at least one the one from Memphis if that's the one that you guys feel is best. It'll save y'all some shipping um until we can maybe get some numbers on the 2020 models that uh Tri-State has helped us identify. Um but yeah, up to y'all.
1:43:19
Unidentified So, if I heard Chief correctly, what you said that when it comes to the warranty, that if there's any sort of code on the truck, then you're more than we're not going to be able to secure a warranty.
1:43:31
Unidentified Yeah, they said in order to um for them to uh uh uh be eligible for warranty, a mechanic must put it on the computer. The computer has to show zero codes.
1:43:42
Unidentified Okay, and so we have not been able to put that truck in Memphis auto
1:43:48
Unidentified Uh I I asked the foreman to reach out to the seller and he said the seller just hasn't provided it to him yet. That's not to say that it does have codes, doesn't have codes. We just haven't got that information from the dealer. Um a truck before you got to start right by the engine. And the part about that is so yeah, the trade-off would be when we brought this up around, the older the truck is apparently, the more issues you might have with the arm. And siloed is a really mechanical truck. So the 2020 advantage would be while it's not high mileage, there's not a lot of years on the arm. And so you would wouldn't be looking at replacing the arm on the truck. I mean just from sight, it looked like it was in good shape. But I mean of course you can't I don't know how much you can tell just by looking at it. Yes, sir.
1:44:37
Unidentified And we need to back up about two two weeks backwards. We talked here in this in this body about going ahead and renting out the uh
1:44:51
Unidentified the contracting out. Yeah, contracting out sanitation.
1:44:53
Unidentified Can you hear me?
1:44:54
Unidentified Yeah, no. I think you said renting out contracting it out, yes.
1:44:57
Unidentified Contracting it out.
1:44:59
Unidentified Yes, sir.
1:45:00
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° So if we're going to contract this out, which is going to be very beneficial to the city, we need to go ahead and sell our trucks that we have right now. Don't buy any more trucks. Take the money that we've got and start paying our bills.
1:45:17
Chief of Staff Kevin Martin-Arnold So I think you bring up a good point in terms of paying bills. I think you bring up a really good point in terms of paying bills. So currently, our sanitation fees are really what we rely on to pay some of those bills as well as salaries. Um and so if we decide to contract that out, you guys got to realize that we're going to be operating each month with less money than we have been. While we have been operating in a deficit already, um that $110,000 that we probably get off of sanitation fees a month goes towards paying old bills, goes towards paying salaries. So when you contract this out and you're now obligating yourself to pay somebody monthly, that's less money that you're going to be bringing in each month and that's going to put us in more of a bind. Well, I mean it's how are you going
1:45:57
Unidentified Well, we'll have less we'll have less less people to pay because they're not going to be driving trucks. We're not going to have the people on sanitation payroll.
1:46:05
Unidentified The man says even even even with that it wouldn't it wouldn't happen overnight, would it? I mean
1:46:13
Unidentified Yeah, it would be it would take time for them to transition it out.
1:46:15
Unidentified How long? About? I mean I'm I'm asking you something right now. Don't stop me.
1:46:18
Unidentified Not necessarily sure, but it's definitely not fast. Like I said, anywhere around like 6 to 12 months potentially.
1:46:23
Unidentified Yeah, just to get just to get the trucks from a third-party vendor. Um the second biggest Republic has the second biggest company in the country is saying it would take them at least four to five months to get the trucks. So they would be renting trucks for us to use whenever that agreement would be accepted, should it be accepted from the city. Um but there's a wait for them to even find trucks. So that that just kind of paints the picture too around how tedious the search has been for finding vehicles. So it wouldn't it wouldn't be quick.
1:46:54
Unidentified I mean so I mean so really for all practical purposes, even if we do consider looking at contracting, we we need to look at doing something now to address the issue now. I don't want to go back to where we were before with trash on the side of the road. I don't. I just can't I can't do it no more. We got to make a decision.
1:47:19
Unidentified How many trucks do we have that are operational right now?
1:47:23
Unidentified Right now we have our knuckle boom truck, we have our overhead truck, and we have our walk behind that were all purchased last year in January 2025.
1:47:31
Unidentified So, we do have three operational trucks.
1:47:34
Unidentified Yes, ma'am. The knuckle boom truck works on debris and brush, the overhead does our commercial businesses, and the walk behind, because it's smaller than the side loaders, they usually do the courtesy {slash} handicap routes for people who aren't able to get their trash and everything to the road. Or if it's a narrow road that the truck doesn't fit on, they usually go down those.
1:47:55
Unidentified So, if we were able to approve maybe the one in Memphis tonight, if if we could, would that help?
1:48:05
Unidentified Yeah, it would. I mean, yeah, we would just be using the walk behind for courtesy and for the other half of that route.
1:48:11
Unidentified Okay. So, and I'm and I'm I'm I'm saying that, but I'm just still going to be frank with you. The concern I have is, you know, just like you said that 2020 has 200 and something thousand miles on it. And then we're looking at a 20 what, a 2013 that only has 100,000 miles on it. I mean, it kind of makes you I pause a little bit. I'm just going to be honest. But, you know, I'm I know that we have to have trash pick up. So, putting that out there.
1:48:46
Unidentified If I may add.
1:48:47
Unidentified Mhm.
1:48:48
Unidentified Yep.
1:48:48
Unidentified I really need to get back
1:48:50
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2) to talking about uh Foreman and his sanitation out, because I know we're going to have to buy several police cars. And that was brought up about a month ago or two months ago at this meeting, and we told them that we would help them get some police cars. They wanted 10. Maybe they can get by with five or six. But those cars are not going to be free.
1:49:22
Unidentified Uh I understand that.
1:49:23
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2) And and and I think we need police cars more than we need a sanitation truck when when we can farm this out. The money that you picked up selling that those items and then selling the trucks that we have and not having to pay to re- get a truck repaired in Memphis or wherever we have to send it. We don't need to be spending money. We're spending money like water. When I came to work here we were $13 million in the hole. And in 1 year, in less than a in about a year and a half, we're now $4 million in the hole. And we're still spending money. Now, where do y'all think we can get this money? And the police department needs cars. And I think they're that's very important. So, was trash pick up important? But the not if if we can just farm it out like like a lot of these other cities do. They farm out their their pick up for their sanitation. We We don't need any more trucks. We don't need any more repair bills. We don't need any First of all, we got to have people that know how to repair trucks. And evidently we don't have that. So, why we just Why should we have all these headaches that we don't need? The biggest headache that we need is to get some police cars for the policeman. That's number one. Number two is sell what we've got and and hire or the farm out our our sanitation department. If If you start putting a pencil to it, we'll we'll break even or come out ahead.
1:51:10
City Attorney Andre Valley Not necessarily so. Uh the practical issue you all look at the city council in charge of finances. You all need to look at the what is your short-term solution. Whether it's purchasing one, whether it's purchasing two, you need a short-term solution. You all still need to evaluate long-term solutions as well. Um Mr. Messina, you raised a valid point, but the issue also you haven't looked at the countervailing argument to that. If we contract uh with sanitation out uh the city's going to have to buy however many vehicles they they get. They're going to pass on the cost to the citizens. Uh whether they have one truck, two trucks, whether they have a commercial truck, they're going to pass the cost on to the citizens.
1:51:52
Unidentified Now, wait a minute.
1:51:53
City Attorney Andre Valley° Wait, let me finish, please. The issue The issue is we're not going to do a contract with anyone and they're going to lose money. So, they're going to look at whatever they have to do to make sure that they have equipment to service this community and make sure that it it last for the duration of the contract, and then that that bill is going to be passed on to the city. So, the question that I've asked you all to look at a while ago is an apples-to-apples comparison. What is it going to cost? What is the actual cost for the city to operate the sanitation department? And what will be the cost for contracting it out? Either way, there's going to have to be some trucks purchased.
1:52:34
Unidentified Wait, wait, we don't need to
1:52:36
City Attorney Andre Valley° Wait, wait, Mr. Mr. Messina, at this point, the question I think that that they're trying to get to is whether you want to buy do a short-term solution and buy a truck cuz this these trucks are not long-term solutions.
1:52:48
Unidentified No.
1:52:49
City Attorney Andre Valley° Uh the long-term solution eventually you're going to have to deal with the trucks. Now, Mr. Mr. Messina, as you addressed the police department uh the police department does need equipment, but so does the sanitation department. And I think you you all have to have that open discussion as to what is the value, and the question tonight is this. Nobody in this city wants to go back to where the trash wasn't being picked up. And the issue before the body at this point is, okay, what's your practical short-term solution to making sure the sanitation goes forward?
1:53:19
Chief of Staff Kevin Martin-Arnold I will I also just want to add that as it relates to the discussion around police vehicles versus sanitation trucks, the sanitation trucks are at least able to be bought from the street fund. That's money that you have to come up out of the general fund to be able to purchase those police vehicles. And so, that's why I'm I'm not comparing the two. I'm just saying we found a way to that the city treasurer said would work to be able to purchase these vehicles now. Um you can get with Ms. Sandy around the things that she found in terms of the police vehicles and the ways that she found a way to potentially um get those leased, but again, the question is about the sanitation trucks and whether or not y'all going to move forward by one or two or none.
1:54:05
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° That's just the option. If we farm this out for the sanitation, why don't we have to pay or provide trucks for them? They should have their own trucks.
1:54:19
City Attorney Andre Valley° They're going to pass pass the cost to us to the citizens, the city of Helena West Helena. They would have their own trucks, but by you giving away liquor at the liquor store free?
1:54:29
Unidentified Sometimes.
1:54:31
City Attorney Andre Valley° Most people are buying it. It's a cost of business. You got to provide all the equipment. And that's what I'm saying. You Part of the equipment
1:54:38
Unidentified sanitation and the liquor store that don't even compete?
1:54:41
City Attorney Andre Valley° It does. It It's business.
1:54:43
Unidentified Now we on the
1:54:44
City Attorney Andre Valley° When they come in, they're going to pass the cost to operating their business on to the contractee. When they contract with us, they are going to say, here are all our costs. We're going to pay for all of our costs, and we're going to have to make a profit. That's That's I used liquor in terms of it's it's business. And so the thing is they're going to make a profit. Every bit of gas that they spend, every bit of personnel that they spend, every bit of equipment they cost, all the tires, everything that cost of doing business is going to be included in their contract price. Cuz they're going to recoup everything that they're supposed to that they want and make a profit. They're not going to do it for free.
1:55:22
Unidentified Yeah. Yeah.
1:55:23
Unidentified This is business contract.
1:55:24
Unidentified Here's the thing here's the thing that I see. I'm I'm I'm very much interested in looking at eventually up up the potentially looking at at uh other possibilities. Whether it's contracting, but but for now that's what what I'm hearing is that's that's at the earliest 6 months. And you know you most of the time 6 months turns into a year. Right now we need trash picked up now. I think we need to be seriously considering uh something to deal with the the situation now. We've got a pretty much affordable truck with it it is a risk because it's a lower um you know it's it's you know it's a risk. But also too it's a it's a lower risk. It's it's 30 grand. And we also have the balance of the scraps on on everything on everything else. I think we need to move forward in it and get this truck.
1:56:21[applause]
1:56:27
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller (Ward 1) Because right now I don't really see right I don't see any other options. And we come and we we and we talk about this every every you know every meeting, but we got to we got to pick up the trash. So with that being said, I'm going to I'm going to stick it out there. I like to make the motion that we purchase this truck from Memphis. With and wave competitive bidding and all that other language.
1:56:50
Unidentified Which which one is that? What's the what's the price of that one?
1:56:52
Unidentified Uh the 30,000.
1:56:53
Unidentified The 30,000. What order number much The
1:56:57
City Attorney Andre Valley° We'd have to sus- uh sus- place on third and final reading.
1:57:00
Unidentified On on on
1:57:04
Unidentified So, is there a second for the Is there a second to the motion
1:57:08
City Attorney Andre Valley° Let's let me If I may correct the record, your motion is to place order number 14 2026 uh suspend the rules to place it on third and final reading. Is that correct?
1:57:16
Unidentified That's correct.
1:57:17
Unidentified Thank you.
1:57:19
Unidentified Is there a second?
1:57:22
Unidentified I'll second.
1:57:24
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Madam Clerk, will you call the roll? We did have a second to adopt that. The the official contract. Madam Clerk, will you call the roll?
1:57:35
Roll call Roll-call vote — Joe St. Columbia: no; Adrian Messina: no; Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Don Etherly: yes.
1:57:48
Unidentified Yeah. I I mean I don't know how y'all need to approve that to just like if it
1:57:53
Unidentified Just give you permission to
1:57:55
Unidentified And it doesn't come up with codes, then go ahead
1:57:58
Unidentified Just come back to us. Just come back to us.
1:58:00
Unidentified Yeah, come back to you.
1:58:00
Unidentified Just come back to us on Not a motion just Are y'all interested Are you interested
1:58:06
Unidentified Yeah, if it if it has to go cuz y'all will also have to decide what what type of warranty y'all want to get put on the a lot whatever that
1:58:13
Unidentified I mean, I would be interested just to see It might not even be worth it, but at least I'd be interested. If it if it if it
1:58:25
Unidentified Say it again.
1:58:26
Unidentified If it's a If the warranty is available, I think you got to buy it at the time of purchase. So, the warranty will probably be less than the amount spent on it, but y'all still have to make the appropriation.
1:58:34
Unidentified Is that right, though?
1:58:35
Unidentified I mean, this is kind of like an external This is like a gap insurance kind of like
1:58:39
Unidentified Yeah, this is the one that's like provided through the dealer. This is a third-party warranty company.
1:58:44
Unidentified Yeah.
1:58:44
Unidentified So, you just kind of can add that to it as long as it falls within that the age, mileage, and
1:58:50
Unidentified Kind of like gap insurance kind of. Uh
1:58:53
Unidentified I guess in this case the What is it called? Basically the making sure that it operates with no issue. The fact that it comes in not damaged already. Yeah.
1:59:06
Councilwoman Maxine Miller (Ward 1) I would like to say for the record though Um You know, this is a band-aid and that's really all it is. And I was only compelled to vote for it because I do not want the citizens to do without garbage pickup. But I'm going to say again I do not think it is a prudent spending of our taxpayer dollars on what could potentially be a bunch of lemons. And I'm looking at the last sheet back here and we've got uh this scrap. There's already like three garbage trucks back here that you know, we're not able to use. And I'm saying all that just to say this. If we don't decide to contract the services out I would like us if we just buy one good truck at a time. If that's what it takes, just one at a time to get our fleet up, I would like us to do that.
1:59:35[clears throat]
2:00:07
Unidentified I understand. I mean, I'm not necessarily against that. My thing was that we we just wanted two for right now so that we can be able to get into some normalcy and then what y'all do down the line or a lot for us to be able to purchase a newer truck that's Again, that's completely up to y'all. I just know right now we don't have the funds or the Yeah, we don't really have the funds to be looking for something that's shiny.
2:00:31
Unidentified Yeah. And and provide some training. I know I I've been saying this since I've been on the council.
2:00:36
Unidentified Again, y'all we return we had those trucks for a month. We returned them y'all. The only thing that they said was that the tire tread was low. They didn't damage those trucks.
2:00:44
Unidentified Okay.
2:00:45
Unidentified So I don't like I'm going to say that I just don't want us putting out this narrative that we have drivers that don't know how to drive when they had new trucks for a whole month and they went back and the dealer said it, "Hey, your truck was just
2:00:57
Unidentified Not not in that situation but like in some of the others. Like we had like one and I'm not I'm not throwing anybody on the bus but that's why we had one truck we bought like a year ago a year two and it's already broke down.
2:01:09
Unidentified No.
2:01:10
Unidentified Okay.
2:01:10
Unidentified even though we had that the one even the one that went to Memphis that was there for those like 3 months that wasn't really like a big issue in terms of driving as much as like
2:01:18
Unidentified No, not the commercial one. It was like another wasn't it another truck that we purchased and like a year or two later it was already
2:01:24
Unidentified All three of the trucks that we had that we purchased
2:01:26
Unidentified narrative I heard but that's what I was told that there was a truck Okay. Okay. And that could be that could be false information
2:01:33
Unidentified to the some of the things around the mechanic part of it y'all like some of these trucks do have issues every once in a while they get fixed in-house and we're able to put them back on the street immediately. And so that's not something that like again I don't want to make I want to make sure that we're not putting that narrative out that we don't have a decent mechanic and that we don't have decent drivers because I see these guys working every day and they are they Yeah, they're they're doing their job.
2:01:58
Unidentified Okay. And that's that's definitely not my narrative. I just want to make sure that when we when you get it it's it's expensive piece of machinery like that that people know how to how to use it.
2:02:06
Unidentified That was more so for the public because again I feel like there's also a lot of misinformation around cuz I keep hearing, "Well, what happened to the new trucks we bought last year?" The new truck that we bought last year are still operational. They still are covered under warranty and the the things that we are able to fix that aren't covered under warranty the mechanic fixes.
2:02:22
Unidentified I got you. Okay. Thank you, sir.
2:02:24
City Attorney Andre Valley° Just just as a footnote um on that property to sell from sanitation there have to be an ordinance passed approving that.
2:02:32
Unidentified Yeah, that's why I also read that y'all too though to even approve of the fact that anything was going to be uh moved off the lot. Yeah.
2:02:39
Unidentified Is is my understanding in the uh secretary um Sorry. The clerk can correct me if I'm wrong, but we approved the sale of those items back in October or September of 2025.
2:02:55
Unidentified You got to do what ordinance I think with which are auctions auctions or something like that.
2:02:59
Unidentified Yeah, that's the same route we're going to take. First sanitation you all.
2:03:03
Unidentified Okay.
2:03:05
Unidentified I don't I don't remember that one. I I'll say this on the sanitation trucks. Um We've gone this route before purchased you sanitation trucks and they barely ran. So, it's a crap shoot one way or another, but we we can't we're at a position where we can't do nothing. That's not an option. So, we have to do something to at least try to pick up the garbage. Um
2:03:31
Unidentified And I mean on our end we've done as much due diligence as possible y'all. Like we got them vetted and got [snorts] proof of life. They operate. They They ain't some They ain't some good lemons if they some lemons y'all. I'm sorry. Like
2:03:48
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Thank you Mr. Marino. We we appreciate you. Thank you. Um and I want to just uh give the body an option. It is 8:30. I want to be respectful and mindful of your time. I am um able to continue this meeting, but I do not know everyone's schedule at this time. So, I want Is there any Do we feel like this needs to
2:04:10
Unidentified table it or
2:04:11
Unidentified I think all the council members these all black they can detail on the brand.
2:04:14
Unidentified Council members here?
2:04:17
Unidentified Mr. Mayor
2:04:18
Unidentified Mhm.
2:04:19
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2) This body is solely fixate fixated on garbage trucks. What what's this I got in the mail that y'all sent me? It say it reads Let me see. Energy is seeking a substantial down payment on the debt and then a monthly set amount. Energy says the city owes approximately $554,757 and the water sewer department owes $146,000. Some of these charges go back as far as 40 years. And legally there is a 3-year statute of limitations on some outstanding debts. So, what are we going to do about that? We're going to go go to four now. We're going to be at $4,200,000 in debt.
2:05:11
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° That That was an item that was placed on the agenda at the last meeting.
2:05:14
Unidentified no, sir. I can't hear you.
2:05:15
Mayor Joseph Whitfield That was an item that was placed on the agenda not at the last meeting, but two meetings ago. And so, where we are now is that I'm going to I'm going to give time to the city attorney. They negotiated a certain amount of forgiveness for us. Um they've sent the exact amount that we as the city would owe, the city of Helena West Helena owes, and pretty much similar to what you just read and the amount that the water department owes. And so, I'm going to make sure that the city attorney looks at that before we commit to anything. I did bring that to the table because um I wanted to make sure that the body was aware, but also had some say in um how that gets pri- how that got prioritized.
2:05:51
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° But before we commit to anything, we just voted on buying another truck.
2:05:56
Mayor Joseph Whitfield° Well, the truck is a necessity. Yeah, we did the truck It was either purchase a truck or spend money potentially renting or
2:06:03
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° Or paying off our bills. What What What's wrong with paying off our debt? $4,000,000 in debt. And I don't like to be on a situation that Mr. Bassina is sitting up on a $4,000,000 debt and has not done one thing to clear the debt. It's It seems kind of stupid on our part.
2:06:23
Mayor Joseph Whitfield We're going to make sure we're We're going to make sure that that list gets reviewed uh by our city attorney to make sure that we have the most accurate accounts as possible. I've I will say that um for I don't think those go back quite 40 years, but some of those um I think those were from 2000 to 2011.
2:06:41
Unidentified if it's 30 years.
2:06:42
Unidentified Un- understood. Um but I do
2:06:45
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2) We're supposed to be intelligent people that sitting on this on this council, and we're not acting very intelligently on what we're doing. I've been watching what's been going on since I've been on this council, and not a penny has been going toward paid toward the debt. Maybe Maybe all of living in debt. I don't.
2:07:06
Mayor Joseph Whitfield I I appreciate your comment is noted, Mr. Messina, and and I just I I echo and share your sentiment that paying the debts is is a priority, and like I said, that list hit the table two meetings ago, and that is a conversation we're having. So, I I I just want you to know that um I I echo your sentiments that that that's serious. Um I do want to go back to my previous question, though. Um it looks like we packed up, so if if we do feel like these items can be tabled, uh community service ordinance proposal, resolution establishing uniform rules, and receipt reimbursement ordinance, then I will entertain a motion to adjourn.
2:07:41
Unidentified So moved.
2:07:42
Unidentified Second.
2:07:43
Mayor Joseph Whitfield Meeting adjourned.
2:07:52
Unidentified Record
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.