While not taking any action on a request to establish a permanent entertainment district at Pine Mountain Village, the Eureka Springs City Council did take steps toward lifting some restrictions on temporary districts in the city.
At its regular meeting on Monday, July 22, the council voted 5-0 to have city attorney Forrest Jacobi revise ordinance 2283, which deals with temporary entertainment districts. The changes will remove two sections that prohibit two temporary districts taking place at the same time in different parts of the city.
“Lateral locations, I guess is one way to put it,” council member Terry McClung said. “Where we can have more than one entertainment district at the same time, like when something citywide is going on. I think that is certainly a fair request.”
The owners of Pine Mountain Village recently asked to be allowed to have a permanent entertainment district instead of having to repeatedly request a temporary district for the numerous events they hold each year. During those discussions, it was brought up that only one temporary entertainment district at a time is allowed by the existing ordinance.
With the ordinance changes, there will no longer be a conflict with dates. Another change in the ordinance would be the requirement that each event provide its own security.
Mayor Butch Berry told council members that there have been scheduling conflicts in the past with temporary entertainment districts, “mainly … Pine Mountain and downtown.”
“No temporary entertainment district application for any of the same dates and locations has already been approved, or was previously received and will be approved,” reads one point in the “Standards for the creation of a temporary entertainment district” that will be removed.
The other point to be removed includes: “No temporary entertainment district application for the same date, or within a time frame within 24 hours of the same date, has been previously received and will be granted,” and goes on to discuss how numerous events could put a strain on the city’s ability to provide public services.
Council member Harry Meyer said he would rather the ordinance stay the way it is.
“I like the idea of only one at a time,” he said. “I don’t know why we want to have four or five temporary entertainment districts on the same day. Or two or three. That puts a strain on the police department. …” Police chief Billy Floyd, who will have input on the ordinance revision, said he didn’t have an issue regarding the changes.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it if we had some kind of knowledge of what their security was going to be up front …,” Floyd told council members. “I wouldn’t have a problem.”
Council members Steve Holifield, Susane Gruning and David Avanzino said they supported the proposed changes but felt the request for a permanent entertainment district was a separate issue, which they oppose.
“I definitely think we need to separate these two, discussions on permanent and temporary,” Holifield said. “Permanent has nothing to do with the temporary. I’m not for a permanent entertainment district at all. I don’t think this council is even really supporting a permanent entertainment district. It’s been brought to us a couple of times and there’s been no support for it. So, I’m not sure why we’re talking about it again. But, the temporary, I can see if we don’t want to limit the businesses. Pine Mountain can do an event and someone downtown can do an event, and if they pay for their own security and if it’s not taxing the police department.
“So, I’m for it.” Berry reminded council members that all applications for entertainment districts must be approved by the council, but only after being approved by the police chief, fire chief and public works manager.
“If they have a problem, then they’ll deny it,” Berry said of the city officials.
CORVETTES AND TRAFFIC
After the vote on the changes to the temporary entertainment district policy, the council discussed a proposal from Pine Mountain Village for a temporary district for Corvette Weekend on Oct. 3-6.
The council discussed traffic issues along that area of East Van Buren Avenue during events.
However, the majority of the council said congested traffic is just a part of Eureka Springs being a tourist city.
“You can’t fix the traffic problem,” Mc-Clung said. “If you’re going to have people in town for any kind of event like that, you’re going to have the traffic. There’s just not anything you can do. I’d rather have the traffic and have the people and have the potential business in town than not. It’s what we are, a tourist town.
“If we don’t have people in town, we don’t raise taxes. … If we want them here, we’ve got to put up with a little bit of difficulty.”
Floyd acknowledged that traffic can be an issue around Pine Mountain Village as vehicles are backed up trying to turn into the parking lot, but said he felt events like that weren’t a major burden on his department.
“Higher traffic is always an issue,” Floyd said. “It’s not specifically an entertainment district. Bikes, Blues & BBQ is always all hands on deck. It’s encouraging things, like if we get something ahead of time, saying it’s not just your normal event year, we’re going to have this and this and this, like the ones who do Jeep Jam, and the other different events that we have where we know there’s going to be a ton of traffic in town.
“ En t e r t a i nme n t districts specifically don’t necessarily tax us, it’s just where the people are gathering where we can keep an eye on it. Knowing their security, knowing who their contacts are, that would be helpful.”
The council voted 4-1 to approve the Corvette Weekend district, which will be from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. the four days of the event. Meyer cast the only vote against the request, saying the district at Pine Mountain Village should have a more restricted area for people to drink alcoholic beverages than plans submitted indicate.
OTHER ITEMS
In other business, the council voted 5-0 to approve a planning commission request to extend the current moratorium on new Conditional Use Permits for bed and breakfast locations through the end of the year.
The moratorium, which is in place for new bed and breakfast locations in R1, R2 and R3 areas, was set to expire July 31.
In his regular update, Simon Wiley, public works director, said his department has repaired “probably at least half” of the water meters that haven’t been reading correctly.
“Last Tuesday I gave a report to the mayor and we were sitting at about 240 of them that weren’t reading correctly,” Wiley told council members. “We’ve got that number substantially lower. We’ve had a lot of issues.”
The issues involve new technology that allows water department personnel to read the meters from their vehicles. The city isn’t getting the support expected from the company that installed the meters, forcing the water department to do the repairs itself, Wiley said.
“I want to remind you that I have a staff of six people that do all the maintenance,” Wiley said. “And with these water leaks, we just haven’t had time to dedicate to these meters. We’re working on it as we can work on them. … It’s just being time-consuming because I don’t have the staff.”
McClung told Wiley that if the company that installed the meters isn’t responding regarding the repairs then Jacobi should write a “nasty” letter to them.
“I could contact the attorney and have him do that,” Wiley said.
McClung responded: “I mean, it’s not my decision, but this has been a long, long process. We should be up and running by now and should have been for some time.”
CAPC PETITION
During council member comments, Holifield, who is also acting chair of the city advertising and promotion commission, voiced his displeasure regarding a petition that is circulating in the city. Holifield said the petition’s goal is “to do away with the CAPC.”
“Somebody in town is passing around a petition to do away with the CAPC,” Holifield said. “They need 148 signatures and they’ve been pretty active in trying to collect the signatures.”
Holifield said a friend told him that one person, at least, is calling people and “saying this is about diverting some CAPC taxes to infrastructure.”
“They’re not talking about how it will do away with the CAPC altogether and what that would mean to the city of Eureka Springs,” he said. “It would be just disastrous. Every city that has voted away their A&P has regretted it and had major issues.”
Holifield said he wouldn’t be surprised if the petition gets the required signatures because “people will sign pretty much any petition.”
“If this does make it on the ballot in November, we’ll have to do an educational or something to get people educated,” he said. “What it means and what would happen in the city of Eureka Springs if all our advertising money went away and what would happen to The Auditorium. There would be such repercussions and it would just be disastrous, I believe.
“… This petition is not to just divert taxes. … You can’t just say, OK, we’ll take this tax over here. You have to do away with this first and then come up with a resolution or something on a ballot to create a new tax. So, to me, they’re being very misleading on how they’re presenting this to the public. Just be aware.”
Meyer said during his comments he was also aware of the petition.
“I heard about it,” Meyer said. “They’re ignorant. You can’t spend CAPC money on water and sewer. You can’t. You can’t spend CAPC money on streets. It has to be spent on advertising or this place [The Aud] because it draws people in.”
Holifield said someone called him and asked if he wanted to sign the petition.
“I said, of course not,” he said. “I’m not signing that stuff.”