By Rick Harvey
RHarvey@CarrollCoNews.com
Eureka Springs Mayor Butch Berry is expecting to be in Little Rock on Wednesday, voicing his opposition to Senate Bill 197 at a house committee meeting.
At its regular city council meeting Monday night at The Auditorium, Berry read the statement that he plans to relay before the House Committee on City, County and Local Affairs in opposition to the bill, which aims to restrict cities from putting any restrictions on short-term rentals.
“This is real important for Eureka Springs,” Berry told council members. “The bill has been slightly amended, but it still almost entirely restricts cities or towns the ability to regulate short-term rentals. More specifically, even though short-term rentals are effectively businesses in residential cities, they will not allow us to regulate them any differently than you would any other houses.
“It’s important for representatives to know the issues [residents] are facing with short-term rentals.”
Berry said in a recent committee meeting in the Senate the bill had many voices of support from residents of Bella Vista with the Arkansas Municipal League the only representative speaking against it.
“We’re a town of over 2,000 residents, and yet we have a million visitors each year,” Berry said. “Tourism is not our major industry, it’s our only industry. So, we understand tourism and the value of lodging.
“Many who testified last time talked about the value of tourism and how important it was to their community, Bella Vista.”
When it comes to setting restrictions on short-term rentals, however, Berry said each community is different and should decide what is in the best interest of its residents.
“A city should adopt a procedure in which it can show that it is addressing documented community issues such as the loss of housing for local residents,” he said. “Zoning should be up to municipalities, local leadership and residents as each city is unique upon itself. One reason people live in the city is for the protection of their property values.
“We strongly oppose 197 and feel that such control should remain with the city to handle and not the state. What may be good for Bella Vista may not be in the best interest of Eureka Springs and vice versa. What we do as a city should not be dictated by another city.”
Berry’s words against the proposed new law echoed comments at Monday’s meeting from council members.
“What it would do is it would take restrictions off short-term lodging, which is tourist lodging in residential areas,” council member Melissa Greene said of the bill. “The people of this town fought very hard that they want their neighborhoods and they did not want any more lodging here.
“So, I encourage the citizens of this town to get ahold of your representatives, your senators, because this law will not only hurt the businesses that are here, it will hurt our neighborhoods. It will depreciate property values on commercial property … and it will take housing away from people that want to move here or even people that want something to rent.”
Council member David Avanzino voiced similar concerns and said the city should be researching “creative ways around this situation.”
“Unfortunately, I feel [the bill] is going to pass with flying colors,” he said. “I would like to challenge us as a council and Forrest [Jacobi], as our attorney, to try and look at ways, creative ways, around this situation. I don’t know that they’re out there. I’m not an attorney, so I don’t know what can be done. … I would like to at least look at some options that may halt or slow down this process for Eureka because we have a huge housing problem and allowing things like this to come into our city is only going to make it worse.”
The issue of Senate Bill 197 is the fifth item on the agenda for the committee meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.

BUDGETS AND PATROL CARS
A topic that was on the agenda for Monday’s meeting as potentially forming a council budget committee morphed into changing when the monthly council budget review sessions are held and the questioning of whether off-duty police officers are driving their city patrol cars home.
To help council members understand the budget and have more time to sift through all financial-related documents, city council member Autumn Slane proposed forming a council budget committee that could discuss budget items with city department heads and dig deep into financials and then report back regularly to the full council.
“The city budget is absolutely huge,” Slane told council members. “It’s a lot of information to cover. It’s a lot of information to keep up with. A lot of future planning goes into this that we don’t do here at this table that I would like to be a little more involved in. … I think what this committee, if we did start it, that it would be a kind of an information highway. It would be something where this committee could ask all the questions and maybe have a regular standing meeting with our mayor or possibly … whoever is going to be a part of this.”
Avanzino asked if council members could get budget information earlier to help go though the numbers ahead of the monthly budget review meetings, which typically have been held before the first council meeting of each month.
Council member Terry McClung then suggested that council members receive the budget information in time for the first council meeting of the month, but move the budget review meetings to the second council meeting of the month to give more time to go over the numbers.
Council members agreed that the idea was a good one and voted 6-0 to make the change.
The discussion on the budget led to an off-topic question from council member Harry Meyer about whether police officers who are off duty are currently driving patrol cars home. The question came after Meyer mentioned earlier in the meeting the amount of money the police department is spending on fuel.
“The police cars, who takes the cars home>” Meyer asked.
“No one,” Berry responded.
Meyer replied that he was recently driving to Eureka Springs from Branson when he passed an ESPD patrol car on Highway 21 North near Blue Eye, Mo.
“There may have been a reason for that, but they’re not allowed [to take them home] … with the exception of the police chief … because he’s on call 24/7,” Berry said.
City finance director Michael Akins, however, told council members that officers do drive their patrol cars home.
“I believe that what [police chief] Brian [Young] has said is that, yes, they do drive the car home in case they’re called in,” Akins said. “So, they are allowed to drive their car home.”
Berry responded: “Ok, I was mistaken on that. I thought they were staying at the police station.”
“But that’s a decision that he’s made as a police chief … the police department doesn’t have anything to do with the budget,” Akins said.
Meyer disagreed.
“That’s money,” Meyer said. “That’s wear and tear on cars. Don’t insult me. That’s insulting. We’re buying two new cars every year, spending I don’t know how much God-awful amount of money on repairs. Yes, I think it’s out of control.”
McClung said he was unaware that police cars were being driven home.
“We’re getting sidetracked here, but yes, if they’re all getting to take their cars home on the precedence, the idea, that they’re going to be called back out … I ain’t for that,” McClung said. “If they have a specific reason to be on call, that’s one thing. I understand the chief and I have no problem with him taking his car home because he’s the head guy and he is the one that the buck stops with … but once [an officer] is off duty they should be in their own vehicle.”
Berry said he agreed and would talk to Young about the issue.
“But, that’s not a council decision,” the mayor said. “That’s something that is administrative.”
While the patrol car issue was off-topic from what was on the agenda, McClung said: “The benefit of this discussion, though, is that this has come to the surface. At least we know.”

MOVING ON DOWN
The council will only have two more meetings on the stage at The Aud after voting 5-0 (with Avanzino abstaining) to move all city meetings to the facility’s remodeled basement starting April 1.
McClung made the motion to move the meetings to the basement area, and after confirming that audio and video capabilities would be in place to live-stream and record meetings, the council approved not only moving all of its meetings downstairs, but all meetings that take place in The Aud. The move would free up the stage so repairs and cleaning can take place before spring and summer shows begin.
“There will be plenty of seating for the public,” Greene said of the basement area, addressing a concern from Avanzino that the meetings in the new location would be as open to the public as they currently are in the big auditorium area of the building.
“I’m against moving down the stairs,” Avanzino said. “I think that the transparency that’s provided by us being on stage in front of our constituents at a distance, being videotaped and audiotaped is very important to our residents.”
Avanzino, who is a member of the City Advertising and Promotion Commission said he received 17 emails from residents after the last CAPC meeting where the idea of possibly no longer live-streaming or videotaping the CAPC was discussed.
Berry echoed the sentiment.
“… I think the CAPC discussed that, and I think there was a lot of citizens who were upset over not being videoed,” Berry said before assuring that live-stream video capabilities would be in place.

‘NOT A GOOD COMISSIONER’
While the council quickly and unanimously approved the reappointment of Magi Hayde to Position 6 on the Historic District Commission, that wasn’t the case for Marty Cogan, who was seeking reappointment to Position 4.
There was a quick motion and second for Cogan’s reappointment before council member Steve Holifield, who was recently the HDC chair before stepping down to join city council, voiced strong opposition to Cogan’s reappointment.
“I was on the HDC for eight years, three years as chair,” Holifield said. “The HDC is a unique commission because we are able to recruit candidates on a regular basis … I’d like to state this it is hard for me to do this because I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings, but I found Ms. Cogan, the entire time she’s been on the commission, she’s very inappropriate in the questions that she asks. Even as chair, I tried to direct her not to ask inappropriate questions, but she continued to ask the questions.
“And two, she was very rude to applicants on a consistent basis. Very condescending. She embarrassed the commission and the city on a regular basis. She was openly hostile to [former preservation officer] Kylee [Hevrdejs], very rude to her as well. I urge the city council to vote no on this, on her reinstatement. We need to take applications more seriously. A commissioner like her opens our city up to the possibility of being sued.
“She just stopped following directions and she’s just not a good commissioner.”
After Holifield’s comments, McClung made a motion to postpone the vote on Cogan until the council’s next meeting, scheduled for March 13.
“Gives us a chance to follow up on what [Holifield] said and make our own judgments,” McClung said.
Berry urged council members to reach out to Cogan via phone and form their own opinions on the possible reappointment.