The meeting can be seen in its entirety below this article.

“One of the things that we know we have to address as a community is housing, and we are going to continue to lose people to other communities if we do not address housing, and we will be developing a committee in the next six months, and we're going to ask some people to join us in trying to come up with some creative public private solutions that we can have decent housing for our folks,” Powell said.

She cited decisions of local manufacturers to expand. New Millenium is investing $13.1 million in its facility.  AmeriTies is “doing several upgrades and some job expansion,” Powell said. 

On the other hand, in the area of recruiting new businesses, Powell reported that trade policy decisions have caused a slowdown here.  “This year, to be honest, it's been really slow,” she said. “The tariffs have kind of frozen everybody, from international business to small business. Everybody's waiting to see what the economy is going to do before they move forward with their projected plans, or before they might say, ‘Okay, well, I was going to expand in Mexico, but now I want to expand in America,’ and then they have to start that site selection process all over again.”

Powell also brought the message that she wanted to see Hempstead County be more competitive in seeking grants, since these bring in funds that will not come from local government coffers. “We need your assertiveness towards grants. The [County] Judge and I talked about that, and we don't have a lot of money, but we can go out and try to get a lot of money, and so we are not performing as well as I would like for us to do as a community on seeking grants.” She cited the case of Union County, which received $10 million in grants versus Hempstead County’s $1.4 million.

Powell said Rural Development grant applications will be accepted starting in early May and advised those applying on behalf of communities of 2,500 population or less to go on the Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s website on the topic to find out more. 

“It's a pretty simple application. If you need some help, we can help you. We connect you with the resources. I think it has to be applied for by city officials, but we'd be happy to help in anyway we can … Every community needs to have identified 10 items in their community that they need, so when the grant cycles come up, they're ready to apply every single year,” Powell said.

At this point, County Judge Jerry Crane raised the possibility of seeking grants for tornado sirens, about which he has heard recent complaints.  He said the last estimate of costs for improving them was “well over a million dollars” for installation. 

JP Keith Steed, of District 11, which includes the Blevins area, said at a recent mayors summit he had attended a 50-50 grant was mentioned that could cover tornado sirens.  “That might be something each individual mayor in the county looks into because if they pay half of it, federal or state will pay the rest.”

The meeting began with a roll call, establishing that a quorum was present but not enough members were present to pass appropriations ordinances with instant effectiveness.  Noting this, County Clerk Karen Smith advised the first readings of the two appropriations ordinances be done at Thursday’s meeting. After two more readings at the next two meetings, the ordinances could go into effect.

The court voted unanimously in favor of each of the first readings of the following ordinances:

·       One sponsored by JP Ed Darling to start a separate fund for the reception of possible FEMA funds that would go toward reimbursing the county or helping it fund tornado recovery expenses. This ordinance could go into effect immediately because it is not an appropriations ordinance.

·       One sponsored by JP Jessie Henry which appropriates $3,000 in county general funds toward a van to be used by the county veterans services office.  This was requested by that office’s coordinator Donna Rosenbaum at a previous meeting.

·       One also sponsored by Darling, amends the 2025 budget to increase the road department budget by $25,000 to defray storm recovery costs. Both the latter two ordinances will require two additional readings in two more meetings be approved by a quorum court majority prior to their becoming effective.

Judge Crane asked that the court consider the purchase of an electronic message scrolling sign to be stood in front of the courthouse that could be used to provide important information to passersby. This would cost about $25,000.  

Near the end of the meeting, right after Powell’s presentation, Judge Crane also thanked Sheriff James Singleton and his deputies who helped work to keep people safe after storms downed trees in the county.  But he also said others were of great assistance, too.

“Even a lot of the local people in the communities, gardening and firefighters and everything, they've always been involved, helping. That's what the whole county’s like, everybody's like that. Everybody's trying to help.”

Roads do remain a problem, Crane said, particularly in the Spring Hill area.  “It's a slow go. We've only got so many men working on it, so many trucks, and it's taking money to get all this done. And what we're doing right now is just trying to get everything where people can drive down.”  He said the workers involved were undertaking dangerous tasks among power lines and debris and said they deserved credit for their commitment. The hope is that the county can get its expenses reimbursed by FEMA.

JP Ed Darling said the recent decision by the Trump administration's version of FEMA to turn down Arkansas' request for emergency funds in response to the March storms is being appealed:  "All our congressional delegation signed on to that too. So that's where that is. There's plenty of money there. There's some folks in Washington that think all these rural local communities are running over with money, and we can stand all this stuff, and we can't, and they don't seem to understand that."

Crane said FEMA personnel had been in the county to see the damage.

The meeting adjourned at about 5:05, having begun at 4:30 p.m.