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06-29-017f MINUTES Special Meeting Board of Directors Room City Hall - 500 W. Markham Little Rock, Arkansas June 29, 2001 5:00 P.M. The Board of Directors of the City of Little Rock, Arkansas met in special session with Mayor Dailey presiding. The roll was called by City Clerk Nancy Wood, with the following Directors present: Directors Hinton, Pugh, Stewart, Graves, Kumpuris,Vice Mayor Cazort, Keck, and Wyrick, Lichty. Director Adcock absent. Mayor Dailey announced the purpose of this meeting was that over the last two or three days various board members have gotten calls and or been in conversations either with the City Manager, the City Attorney, with himself, with people from the Central Arkansas Water entity and there have been a number of points. He stated as in any complex business closure there are many points and intentions that need to be clarified and discussed to be sure everyone is working precisely on the same page. Mayor Dailey acknowledged that Mayor Hayes, North Little Rock, along with other representatives from North Little Rock, and has been part of the diligent cadre of folks who have worked on this for the past several months. Mayor Dailey stated as they got into discussion on several points, that the lawyers were brining up, it was clear to him and the City Manager that most of the points were things that could be resolved fairly easily and maybe with a word change or two or some notation, it was easy to work through them. He said there were also a couple of points that were discussed that they wanted to be sure that the discussion purposes here, the city board was clear on this and there was no misunderstandings and felt like the only way to do that, and do it in a way the public would feel confident and comfortable that the parties had met and discussed anything that might have even a gray area hanging out there, was to have a special called meeting. Mayor Dailey stated there was no intention to delay the process of the signing. There is a ceremony scheduled for tomorrow and there is no reason, based upon everything he had observed that this could not go forward, and that was the reason he had asked the board to be at this meeting today. Mayor Dailey asked Mr. Carney, City Manager, cited a group of issues that had been discussed pretty intently over the past couple of weeks. He stated, first there was an issue that had been visited repeatedly in the past, related to the cell towers and the lease of water utilities property, and where cell towers might be located, either on water storage tanks or other locations. There was a question; an issue about that particular activity and in fact the City is to be compensated for part of the revenues received from that. He said there was a question about has the city been adequately compensated for those fees and charges in the past, and what about that? Mr. Carney stated that has been looked at, the accounting has been done, and in place is an arrangement where part of those back fees have been paid and the rest in fact to be recouped based on the percentage of those fees in the future. Mr. Carney said he was satisfied, the finance director was satisfied, and that issue of financing and where those fees go is satisfactorily taken care of. He stated that related to that also in terms of cell towers, there is a question about future cell towers, future locations of telecommunications devices on water utilities related properties, and have worked out language in that respect to in fact insure the city, a split of the fees where eighty -five percent of that, if that facility is located in the city limits of Little Rock would come to the City of Little Rock, but fifteen percent would be the administrative fee that the utility retains in order to provide access and maintenance, and those things necessary to service that telecommunications device. Mr. Carney stated that both present and past issues related to telecommunications is resolved, there is an accounting of the dollars and felt this was a non - issue. Mr. Carney stated the second general area was the issue of restrictions in conveyances related to the properties, in other words, there is great volume of legal descriptions of all the properties owned by the city, but used by the water 1 M2 utility, and the idea of what would be in that conveyance, how it would be done, were questions, and the final resolution, he thought, and stated everyone was clear about this; the city has been able to, with the agreement of the utility, add into the language, clearly, that these utilities, these properties , are in fact to be used for water utility purposes, if there are related purposes, it might not look so much like a water purpose. Mr. Carney gave the following example: If there was a house to be constructed, on a property to serve as a home for a caretaker of the dam, for example, or some other thing, that would certainly relate to water utilities, and it might not look like a water pump, but it might be related, and any related uses such as this are permitted, no question about it. He stated that the city though, does not have any special opportunities related to use of the property, it is to be determined by the water utilities, those related types of uses. Mr. Carney said he had spoken to Mr. Jim Harvey and others, and there are special provisions related to certain pieces of real estate, for example, in the Junior Deputy Park, it is written very clearly in that legal description that all of that property comes to the city with the exception of one easement, and in fact if the water utility needed to get to the river water source at some time, that is preserved, there is a survey of one of the buildings on that property, it is seen as baseball use, but there is storage, in that building that is used by water utilities, so that is reserved for water utilities use. In the event if that was not used, or needed by the water utility for use, the way the conveyance would work is that the city would have opportunity, and that could come back to the city in terms of if it is not used for water utility purposes. Mr. Carney said he thought the form of conveyance, the restrictions, those language issues are out there, and to his satisfaction are resolved. He said the third area, which he thought was significant is that all the properties, particularly focusing on the two water supply areas, Lake Winona and Lake Maumelle, those two properties are the primary supply for water and the watershed area surrounding the property has been the subject for quite a lot of discussion. The conclusion of the matter to his satisfaction was that in those watershed areas, which gets in to very sacred territory for water utility professionals, that is the most sacred of all areas, in terms of protection of water supply. He said it had been talked about the city preserving or having some opportunity of the city using some of those areas for other purposes, but the conclusion of the matter, to his satisfaction, is that the ultimate decisions about the use of those watershed areas will rest with the Water Utility Board of Directors. It would be up to the city whether it's an opportunity to build a nature trail, or some other use, to come to the utility and make the case for that use. The water utility would be vested with those powers to make the ultimate decision. He stated that he and Mr. Harvey had discussed standards for those decisions and the American Waterworks Association, the State Board of health, the professional institutions, organizations do have standards that speak to these issues, and Mr. Carney said he was convinced that all parties, would be reasonable in looking at those requests. Mr. Carney said he thought in the future there may be opportunities to have recreational projects in these areas, and could do some joint venture things, but subject to that very important overriding issue of protecting the water supply. He said he was convinced the utility has the best source of standard addressed evidence of professional understanding of that and ultimately this arrangement would be the final deciding body in doing that, making that decision, and up to the city to make the pitch for any kind of development that it would have to do. Mr. Carney stated those were the key issues. He said there are a variety of other miscellaneous language kinds of things, but thought these were the key things that had been talked through. Director Hinton stated he felt confident that if the Mayor, the City Manager and City Attorney had discussed the issues he was comfortable with the explanations. Director Pugh stated she did not have questions, but stated she felt the pool of the Utility Board of Directors had the right to decide what goes in the watershed areas. Director Graves had no questions. Mr. Carney interjected that there would be one document, that would be in front of the Mayor that had not been discussed as a group, but has been developed in recent weeks, it's labeled "The Cooperation Agreement ", the idea of this document is to in effect, say if there are things that have been left out, or things that need to be addressed that just did not get to in some way, that all parties agree to putting those back on the table and work on those things. He said it is a catchall so to speak, because this is a complicated issued and this type of agreement is appropriate. Director Stewart had no questions, Director Lichty had no questions, Vice Mayor Cazort had no questions, Director Keck , no questions, Director Kumpuris, no questions, Director Wyrick, no questions. Mayor Dailey announced that unless someone in the audience had questions, 2 T/ it was go forth with the signing. Ms. Jane Dickey, Representing the Little Rock Water Commission, thanked the board for holding this meeting, and thanked the City Attorney, and City Manager for all they had done. Ms. Dickey acknowledged some of the people in the audience who had an interest in the project, and thanked them for coming to the meeting. She stated there were a couple of pieces of property that Mr. Carney had mentioned that she wanted to give more detail. She stated that most of Reservoir Park while it was originally Waterworks property, was actually abandoned to the city many years ago. She stated that only the part that is inside the fence is considered Waterworks property, so most of that, the ballparks, etc, are under the city's control and all of Junior Deputy will stay in the City of Little Rock and the new Waterworks will only have one storage building and one, what is called an easement which is a right to take back part of that property to get to the river for water in case that becomes necessary in the future. The rest of the properties would be conveyed by special warranty deed with the possibility of reverter. She said the Waterworks would have the easement at Junior Deputy Ball Park, the special warranty deed again with the right of reverter, on the storage building. She said they just have a quitclaim deed for all the rest of the easements that crisscross the city for all the water mains and then an assignment of the telecommunications leases and then remit eighty five percent of the income off of those leases back to the city. Ms. Dickey invited everyone to the state capitol at 9:00 A.M., tomorrow morning (7 -30- 01) for the signing. Mayor Hayes spoke briefly saying that he wanted to acknowledge the same folks that Jane Dickey had acknowledged earlier, and to give Director Lichty special thanks for the man hours of working through the initial merger recommendation to the committee and his tenacity and leadership is greatly appreciated, and wanted to single out the boards wise choice of having Director Lichty serve in that position, and asked everyone to join in thanking him. Mayor Hayes stated that he just a few hours ago addressed a session of the Arkansas Municipal League, and one of the things he said to them was that those of us in this small state, have to recognize through cooperation we are going to truly lift the quality of life of all our citizens. He said he was appreciative of this board and its willingness to enter into a spirit, and not only a spirit but a delivery of their recognition, that while your size and your breadth does have certain responsibilities, he wanted to compliment the board on how they had seen beyond their borders. He said he was very proud to be a part of a nominating committee now elected First Vice President of the Arkansas Municipal League, Mayor Jim Dailey, who had just been elected a few minutes ago to service in this capacity, and the first time Little Rock would be represented as the President of the League in almost fifty years. He said he felt we were truly lucky in our state to have the talent at the local level and certainly in this room tonight, and was proud to be a part of it. Vice Mayor Cazort stated that since everyone was in agreement with the final negotiations, is there any formal resolution that needed to be acted upon. Mr. Tom Carpenter, City Attorney, answered no. Vice Mayor Cazort moved to adjourn; Director Lichty seconded the motion, and by unanimous voice vote of the board members present, the meeting adjourned at 5:45 P.M. ATTEST: APPROVED: r i y Cler MabIr