The first agenda item, after the call to order, invocation, pledge of allegiance and review of previous meeting minutes, was a 2022 audit report presented by William Chad Miller of the firm William C. Miller, CPA. The directors were each given a copy of the report to look through as Miller spoke. 

“As Don and I were talking just prior to the meeting. We’re very consistent with prior years. So there was nothing that jumped out. [City Manager] J.R. Wilson kept the train on the tracks for his first year. So we were very pleased to see that,” Miller said. 

The report provides what Miller called highlights of the year 2022. “The assets and deferred outflows of resources in the city exceed its liabilities. That's always headed in the right direction. So by the end of 2022, that figure was $20,598,084, which is an increase over the prior year of $1.2 million.” 

The biggest increases in revenues for the city came from increases in charges for services and in sales tax revenue. Miller also listed three areas in which expenses to the city increased over past rates in 2022:  “Law enforcement in 2022: we're looking at 2.5 million, whereas in 2021, we're looking at 2.1. Your general government expenses are 2.79 [millon], compared to the prior year 2.5. And then we have our sanitation, which came in this year with expenses of 2.1 million, compared to our $1.2 million price here.” 

Concerning ending balances for discretionary budgets in 2022, money the city had to work with once its budget was accepted by the board, Miller said the total is $5.6 million, with $1.8 million that is restricted in some fashion, leaving $3.8 million available to the city to do with as its board decides. 

As for liabilities, Miller said, “There is a $3.3 million in your liabilities in over the over the prior year’s numbers.” He went over liabilities for pensions and said that while the increases might look glaring, “there's no reason for alarm here.” 

On the other hand, Miller said the city’s capital assets, its property and its investment instruments, increased in value in 2022 by $2.3 million, much of which was from construction in progress. 

Wilson, providing necessary perspective, as he put it, said the city had not missed any payments for its pension plans. He explained that the companies running the plans could raise the rates the city must pay at any time and the city would have to cover the cost. “That's just the way the pension systems work. I think LOPFI [Arkansas Local Police & Fire Retirement System] went up this year, from 23.5 to 24 [percent]. And they just tell us it’s got to go up and we have to go up. In my opinion, these systems are not sustainable. But that's the J.R. Wilson opinion. And not the state of Arkansas.” 

Sherryl Miller, Manager of William C. Miller, CPA, said that when the stock market was performing well, cities with retirees on stock-based pensions like LOPFI have to cover less of the cost. But in volatile years, as 2022 was, saw increased costs for cities. She also praised City Finance Director Cindy Clark for her help in assembling documents for the audit. 

Next, Mayor Don Still read the proclamation for National American Indian Heritage Month for November, which has three Whereas clauses, including “Whereas, the contributions of Native Americans have enhanced the freedom, prosperity, and greatness of America today.” The first Native American Awareness Week was in 1976, then expanded to a month by Congress in a bill signed by President George Bush in August of 1990. The proclamation Still signed ends with “I urge all the citizens of Hope to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.” 

A city rail spur sinking was the subject of the next agenda item. The location is just south of other rail spur repairs that have been completed at the Industrial Park in the past three years. Past attempts to raise the track have not succeeded.  City Manager J.R. Wilson said that because of the approach of winter and likely more rain, a repair is needed quickly for about 130 linear feet of track. Sinking track can cause trains to derail. 

Of three quotes from contractors received in October, the lowest was $48,000 from Grace Railroad Contractors, which Hope's Street Superintendent Kenneth Harvel said the city has worked in the past and which is known to use a machine uses a process to raise rails in a short time. The board voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance waiving competitive bidding and contracting with Grace for the job on an emergency basis. 

In the next item, the board discussed allowing Wilson to sign a contract to reserve aerial photography flights by Eagleview/Pictometry that would take place the fall of 2024 to winter 2025. The photos would be used by the city in addressing, road updating, parcel creation, economic development maps, code enforcement, utility planning and as general background for maps. 

The city would share the expense for the work with Hempstead County and Hope Water & Light, paying 28.35 percent of the total cost which at this point is unknown, but the board would have a chance to see it upon its placement on the 2025, 2026 and 2027 budgets. 

The board voted unanimously to approve the signing of the contract by Wilson. 

In the City Manager’s Report, Wilson announced that the directors would have a proposed 2024 budget by the second regular November meeting. It includes the following priorities as quoted from the meeting’s Agenda Information: 

1.     Five percent pay increase for all full-time staff 

2.     Two and half percent pay increase for all part-time staff. 

3.     Additional prorated increases for sworn police employees funded by a reduction in force of one sworn administrative position. 

4.     Raising minimum pay for fire personnel to $40,000 annually. 

5.     Other individual adjustments based on market assumptions. 

6.     Moves all building services/code enforcement personnel to that cost center. 

Wilson also delivered the news that the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality did not approve use by the city of post-closure funds for the upcoming landfill remediation project.  The city continue to seek funds, but has budgeted $500,000 toward the project in its 2024 budget and will likely need to raise sanitation rates, possibly adding a debt-service fee, to cover the full expense. The ADEQ has mandated the project be done and the city has passed the agency’s deadline for getting it underway. Wilson said he would meet with the project’s engineers next week and would bring recommendations to the next city board meeting. 

Wilson also said a five-year capital improvement plan for Hope Municipal Airport is due for submission to the Federal Aviation Administration next Friday, November 17th. This will include what the city would do there with federal funds. 

Hope is one of the finalists for a potential business locating here, that business having made its third site visit.  Wilson cut a vacation short to return for that visit. He also thanked the board for allowing him vacation time. 

City Director Mark Ross, an Iraq War veteran, reminded the board, city officials and attendees that the Veterans Day parade will roll from South Elm starting Friday, November 10th at 4:00 p.m and on the following day, Saturday November 11th, a ceremony will be held at the old courthouse and a meal from the Hope Lions Club would be served free to veterans and their spouses. Others can eat for $10 per meal. Ross said it was the first time in 22 years veterans had been given a parade in Hope. 

In Citizens Request, Michelle Thomas told the board the 15 percent increase in water rates recently approved by Hope Water and Light’s board to start in 2024 would fall hardest on poverty-sticken households in Hope and said the same of debt-service fee being considered on sanitation service by the city board. “The 15 percent may not hurt you,” she said. “But it's going to take my light bill from $223 to $262. Now another $5 for something else. We don't have that money in Hope Arkansas. We don't make that type of money in Hope, Arkansas.” 

Mayor Still said the city’s choice of using its own landfill has “been a money-saver for the city of Hope” compared to what other cities pay for using regional landfills. He explained that when the Hope landfill was dug in the 1990s in Guernsey, ADEQ had approved it, but that it had changed its regulations since to require a liner.  “What they’re putting on us now is from the top down,” he said and said while the city was still looking for outside funding, it was facing paying penalties and needed to act soon. 

Wilson said he sympathized with the difficulty the increases put on citizens and that before settling on the increases a lot of work was done to minimize the impact. He also said the city would be doing work in the future with about $4 million in grants and low interest loans, including a wastewater ultraviolet light disinfection system project, making the point that the city had been successful in other areas at finding outside sources of funding without passing the expense to its citizens. 

Still added that the sanitation fund lost $342,000 last year. “To be good stewards, we’ve got to make it so everything is paying itself out. We’ll just be looking at different ways. I hear it every day out at [Still’s Automotive] that we’re being taxed to death, so we need to be good stewards.” 

There being no other Citizens Requests, Still adjourned the meeting.  A video of the meeting that begins about eight minutes after it was called to order (technical difficulties delayed recording) can be seen just below the photos.