The meeting can be seen in its entirety on the CIty of Hope's Facebook page. 

Wilson said the purchase was more than accounted for in the city’s 2025 budget. There had been internal discussion about purchasing the dozer by borrowing funds from the Hope Municipal Airport’s budget but this was considered too much of a risk. “Staff does not recommend doing that at this point. We have some large grants that have been done. And as you know, those grants, the money doesn't come in sometimes till after we have to pay it. We think we would run, could run into a cash flow problem,” he said.

The borrowing of the funds from Cadence Bank does not violate an Arkansas law that limits cities to short term loans of only up to the value of five percent of the value of assessed property in the city and real property.   Since that totals to $75,448,728 and five percent would be $3,772,436.40, the amount borrowed from Cadence would fall well below that.

City Director Mark Ross asked if the loan could be refinanced if interest rates fall.  Wilson said this is indeed possible to do.

Landfill Superintendent Mark Curtis said the dozer comes with an extensive five-year warranty that allows for regular maintenance and diagnostic checks at the shop in Texarkana.  “It's the premier warranty, the best they’ve got.”

Director Ross asked what the difference would be between the new dozer and the previously used one.  “The D5 is a discontinued dozer, and right now it's 128 horse, where this one here is going to be about 170 horses, and also where the other dozer weighed 28,000 [pounds], this one is about 48,000.  It's going to be a bigger dozer.”

After the board members voted unanimously to approve the ordinance specifying the loan agreement and purchase on an emergency basis, they also voted unanimously to declare the non-running 2004 D5N Dozer to be surplus to sell at public auction with a $30,000 bid minimum bid specified.  Curtis told the directors he thought there was a pretty good chance the dozer would sell, despite it’s need for about $90,000 in repairs before it could be run.

During the Finance Report portion of the agenda, City Manager Wilson said that while he had announced at the last meeting a reduction in sales tax receipts of 7.5 percent year-over-year, new data showed that sales tax receipts are returning to even levels.  Cindy Clark, the city’s finance officer and clerk said, “We budget low for that, below what we think we're [going to receive]. So we're right on target.”

Wilson said Sanitation Department and Wastewater Department revenues are also on target to what was projected to come in. “In fact, our wastewater revenues are above our projections. That's pretty good.”

In answer to a question from Director Steve Montgomery, Wilson said that the approximately $90,000 a year payments for the dozer had been accounted for in the category of debt service.  

In City Manager’s Report, Wilson told the board that representatives from a law firm from Alabama had visited to do some testing for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances at the landfill, finding no problems.  These are often referred to as PFAs or “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancer,  metabolism problems and immune system problems. They have been used in the making of non-stick cookware, clothes, carpets and packaging since the 1950s.

He also said the city’s offices are in the middle of an audit for 2024’s records.  “A lot of stress around the office. Please bear with us. If the phone didn't get picked up right away, or something of that nature, it’s a lot going on.”

The application for state grant funds for radiology equipment for Southwest Arkansas Regional Medical Center is now in the hands of the staff at the Southwest Arkansas Planning and Development District after having been reviewed and changed by hospital staff.  The city requested $1.5 million.  The twenty percent match should the grant be awarded would be covered by the hospital.  If the grant requested by Hempstead County for funds to partially repair the hospital roof is awarded, the city would be responsible for ten percent of the matching cost of the grant.  The county would put up ten percent as well.

Bild Architects, which is in charge of the building of the aquatic/recreation center and other projects is in the process of what are called 30 percent meetings, Wilson said.  “We'll have our architect here and our engineers to talk with you all about the 30 percent plans. I think we're really moving forward in that arena. I think you'll like what you see.”  Bild and the engineers involved in the project will appear at the August 5th city board meeting.  These designs are expected to incorporate suggestions that were made after city officials met with local swim team representatives.

Director Reginald Easter asked if there were any updates on a traffic light on East Third and Hazel that may have to be taken down.  

“'ll just be honest with you. That's not going to be funded, and we're going to need to take it down at some point. I'm sorry to tell you that the state's not going to fund it. It doesn't meet the requirements,” Wilson said adding later in the meeting that the traffic count on the intersection is too low. He described a process by which the traffic light will be removed that involves providing signage and notice at the location prior to its removal. 

Director Ross said he had been against removing the light, but “once I got to looking at the traffic counts, there's more traffic that goes off Main west than it is east.” Vice Mayor Kiffinea Talley said she would like to see these traffic counts.  Her preference, she said, would be to move traffic lights from West Third and South Elm to East Third and Hazel.

Mayor Still said in the past there had been some thought of raising the lights so they would be out of the way of the wide load trucks that tend to hit them. “That's going to be impossible, and it's going to be an ongoing thing with those wide loads. So let's look at the traffic counts. We'll talk about it next meeting.”

Wilson said the cost to the city of replacing the traffic light at Hazel on its on would likely run into the hundreds of thousands because of the various electronics that needed to be installed. “That'd be coming out of our street department. That'd be coming out of not paving roads, not doing all this other stuff that we do.”

Director Montgomery said, “We could [install]announced the date of the city’s Sparks Fly in July celebration, which will take place starting at 5:30 at Hope Municipal Airport on July 5th.  Director Montgomery said weather is expected to be warm and clear.

In Citizens Request, Charles Primus spoke to the board about reserving the Washington-Douglas Community Center for a discounted rate for next year’s Juneteenth Celebration. One city director agreed to use his personal funds to cover any cost for the reservation.

An executive session was called by Mayor Still for a personnel matter.  The board met in its private conference room for about 15 minutes and returned with the announcement that a new assistant finance director would be hired because of the needs arising for help in that office.

The meeting adjourned at about 8:10 p.m.