The Eureka Springs City Council meeting was quick and uneventful on Monday, May 13.
The meeting lasted only 30 minutes, there were no public comments, and the handful of votes were unanimous, including one to cancel the council’s next meeting, scheduled for Monday, May 27, which is Memorial Day.
“I think we should probably put this meeting off, maybe have it a little earlier or a little later because City Hall is going to be shut down and it’s a holiday weekend,” council member Harry Meyer said. “I don’t think we really have any pressing business for that meeting, and if we do we can always call a special meeting.”
The council voted to cancel the meeting, and for now, won’t meet again until Monday, June 10.
PUBLIC WORKS UPDATES
Public works director Simon Wiley reported that there were no more water leaks that his department was aware of, something that received surprised reactions from the council members.
“I’m proud to announce that right now there are zero water leaks and that’s the first time since I’ve been here,” Wiley said.
Council member Terry McClung responded: “At least that we know of?”
“Yes, at least that we know of,” Wiley said. “You’ve got to remember the geographic makeup of our area. A lot of the water goes underground and we just don’t know it’s leaking. So, as far as we know, we have have zero leaks that are identified at this time, which is kind of big.”
McClung also asked about lingering issues with water billing and some residents being overcharged.
“I know they had billing problems again this last month,” McClung said. “Some of them were excessively large … My bill came out and it was printed upside down. I mean, it was no big deal, it was just kind of confusing.”
Wiley said the issue is with the new remote meter reader being used and with adding a multiplier to some accounts. The water department is working to identify the issues before bills are mailed out, he said.
“We’re trying to catch those but of course some of them slip through the cracks,” Wiley said. “There was one person who got billed by the gallon instead of by the rate of a thousand gallons so their bill was $200,000 and we caught that one.
“[The system] is doing some funky stuff for us it seems like and we’re just trying to work through it.”
In an update on the sewer treatment plant, Wiley said his team is continuing to work closely with McClelland Engineering on the sewer rehab project.
“As of right now, at the sewer plant, everything is actually working,” Wiley said. “The only thing that we’re trying to do right now is pump down that sludge base because we need to do an inspection of the bottom of that sludge basin. We going to start pumping that down, treat that sludge and try to get it out of there where we can get a visual on the bottom of the basin.”
COUNCIL APPROVALS Other unanimous OK’s by the council included the second reading, by title only, of Ordinance 2351 which will ban all forms of confetti during parades.
The council will need to approve a third and final reading and then the new ordinance will go into effect 30 days later.
The council also approved an “application for taxi certificate of public convenience” for Tesla Taxi, something that is required by city code, but goes against state law on the issue, according to city clerk treasurer Ida Meyer.
“The code requires us to have a certificate of public convenience, but that goes against state law,” Ida Meyer said. “We can’t regulate taxis. I highly recommend we clean the code up and go ahead, for now, and approve this because he’s doing the proper steps and getting a license when he really doesn’t have to.”
Ida Meyer said state law revoked cities’ rights to regulate taxis and ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft around 2018 or 2019.
“I think we need to have our city attorney look into getting rid of the ordinance or whatever we need to do to clean up that ordinance that requires a franchise on taxi services,” Mayor Butch Berry said.
The council voted to go ahead and approve the request. City attorney Forrest Jacobi will review the city code on the issue and bring it back to a future council meeting.
