Updating the Arkansas Fire Code, applying for grants, appointing a new city clerk and reviewing the April financial report were on the agenda when the Hope City Board of Directors met Tuesday night for its second regular meeting of the month of May. The meeting in its entirety can be seen by clicking on the picture above.
Hope Building Official Carl Conley took the podium to request the passage of an ordinance to bring Hope into compliance with the State Fire Marshal’s updating the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code to the 2021 Edition. The last time the code was updated was in 2014.
The adoption of the new code will mean that the City Board will continue to act as the Board of Appeal should any dispute over interpretation of the code arise if city decides against allowing a structure to be connected to utilities on the basis of it not following the updated code.
An ordinance was passed unanimously with an emergency clause to bring the city into compliance with the new code.
City Manager J.R. Wilson asked that the board appoint Amber Murr as City Clerk. She will take on that role in addition to her current role as Deputy Clerk. She replaces NaTashia Rileydavis, who will take an instructor position at Southern Arkansas University.
The board unanimously authorized Wilson to make two grant applications. One is for continued participation in the National Highway Transportation Safety Association/Arkansas Highway Safety Office STEP Grant program, which Hope Police Department has been party to since 1998. Lowering the number and rate of vehicular accidents, people hurt and structures impacted is the program’s mission. Overtime pay for road patrols is made available. The grant would be $33,869.71 and require a local, in-kind match of $15,223.08.
In-kind matches to grants can come in the form of spending but can be calculated from the labor of city personnel.
The second grant application, one Hope has been a part of since 2013, would be submitted to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration for funds allocated by the Federal Violence Against Women Act, also called the STOP Grant. This grant funds about half of one detective’s wages and benefits for investigation of domestic violence and would amount to $26,683.01 in federal funds and require a $10,105.01 local in-kind match.
Several minutes of the meeting were spent by the board’s examining the April financial reports. A few budget lines that showed higher than average spending patterns were explained by Wilson or by Hope Finance Director Cindy Clark.
In the City Manager’s Report, J.R. Wilson said he was asked by board members about the cost of adding more sidewalk and a driveway to Pine Street between Division and Second Streets. Today, Wilson said, he would be meeting with members of the local fire pension board to decide whether they would stay in that pension or join the state retirement system. The pension board would need the city board’s approval to make the switch. He also announced ten lifeguards have been hired to work at the Fair Park pool.
