The meeting can be seen starting with Powell's report just below this article.
Powell said much of her office’s time over the past year has been spent on work to retain Hope’s only hospital. She said she is hopeful that requests for funds from the state will be successful.
“I would say 40 percent of my time in 2024 was spent to it,” she said. “And then again, when the legislative session began in January, we have continued to lobby for efforts and funding to support our city- and county- owned facility. And so ultimately, the perfect number is not there yet, but we are actively improving our healthcare organization. The way that we're engaged at this point is we sit on the board [of the Southwest Arkansas Healthcare Authority] and try to find partnerships that lobby for funds that could potentially help our local hospital. So it's still in the works. It’s still new, things are developing every day on that project.”
The 2025 Arkansas legislative session closed Wednesday at noon without funding being voted out or signed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders for Hope’s Southwest Arkansas Regional Medical Center.
Vice-mayor Kiffinea Talley asked Powell about feedback from businesses or agencies who had turned down the chance to locate in the city of the county. Powell said she always seeks to find out reasons for decisions that go against locating here. “Ninety percent of the time we do not get an answer. We always ask the state. We always ask our project manager. But most of the time, we do not get a for sure answer. A lot of times it can be a general response, and we might know based on our conversations in that site visit.”
Powell said sometimes a company wants a rectangular-shaped plot of land, or its utility demands would be beyond local capacity. She said she also finds companies may not understand that long commutes are often the norm for workers here according to information acquired from surveys.
“You'll see the commutes and the drive times and the mileage on some of the data, and it's just as much comes out as goes in. And our daytime population is huge. It's 27,000 in our city, substantial. We're over three times what our population is in our community. So obviously there are some things that we have to figure out and improve, but it's a process, and we'll start following those layers back from surveys and bringing that back to you guys.”
Christy Burns in her report said, “Within the past year, flowing over into the first quarter of 2025 the chamber is focused on downtown engagement, social media outreach and supporting community events. Key accomplishments of this first quarter include strong participation in the city's 150th anniversary celebration, consistent promotion of local businesses and events and continued support for economic growth and tourism.”
The board also heard the results of the city's receiving of bids for three projects, accepting the low bids for a runway repair project, a holding pond sludge removal project and an automated control valve project. The board also approved the application for a grant from Arkansas Aeronautics to fund runway rehabilitation.
The City Manager's report included the results of a meeting with FAA officials after which City Manager J.R. Wilson said he felt favorable of the chances of receiving permission to sell airport land but then heard later the FAA is moving toward not giving such permissions out of a concern for developers crowding airports in in urban areas.
Wilson reported some estimates of storm damage to the city for which it will apply for reimbursement. He said the damage amounted to about $147,523 worth with the greatest expense being incurred by Hope Water & Light.
Wilson also provided a report on the Arkansas City Managers Association meeting, a report on work to replace a collapsed storm drain. Mayor Still offered expressions of thanks to the planners and participants in Saturday's Sesquicentennial celebration.
City workers and jail inmates spent some time trimming trees and beautifying Rose Hill Cemetery, Wilson said: “We had a cemetery work day last week with Parks, the Street Department, landfill, me and [Assistant City Manager] Daniel [Shelman] and probably about 25 prisoners. We did the front magnolias. We trimmed all the trees. And now we've gone into the interior. We've been trimming trees all through the park. [Parks Superintendent] Summer [Chambers] was there with us, leading us and guiding us, and we just had a good time working with the guys about four hours that morning, and we took them to lunch after that to say thank you to them, but we had a good work day.”
Asbestos testing results on the buildings at the former Village Shopping Center on East Third, a potential location for the new Hope Fire Department headquarters is expected soon. The testing was necessary to find out the total cost of taking down the old buildings. Wilson said he would come to the board if more than the $13,000 fee which was budgeted for is needed.
He asked the board to decide on its top two preferred locations for the new fire station by the first May meeting.
When he was asked about the problem raised by a citizen at the previous meeting about wastewater backing up into a home he owned, Wilson said it was found that a storm drain that went under the railroad track had been blocked by railroad cross ties and a refrigerator, causing that home to flood. City workers cleared the obstruction, but that work does not impact the ongoing problem the home has with wastewater. Wilson said he will probably send Kiamichi [Railroad] a bill for the city’s work in clearing the pipe.
A city-wide cleanup day is scheduled for Saturday, April 19. Volunteers are welcome to come to Hope’s Public Works offices on 1603 West Third at 7:00 a.m. Residents of the city can dispose of all waste except refrigerators that contain coolant by placing it at the curb Saturday. Trailers with refuse can be taken to the landfill without charge.