The Pea Ridge City Council discussed enforcement of ordinances, purchasing an ambulance and agreed to buy half a dozen squad cars at its regular meeting Tuesday, June 20.
Pea Ridge resident Glen Swanson came to speak about the enforcement of Ordinance 141, which he said is lacking.
"Ordinance 141, dated 1987, has no teeth," he said. The ordinance, he said, is intended to control nuisances, but the lack of specificity in how it is enforced renders it useless.
Swanson said that, for example, the ordinance doesn't specify a height at which grass needs to be cut, and if notice of a violation is never picked up by the offending party there's not really a way to proceed with taking care of a situation. The council, he said, needs to fix this situation and make the ordinance useful.
"You have a good city attorney," he said. "You might as well use him."
Council member Lance Sanders said that, while the city has a level of responsibility, residents can also pursue these issues on an individual level through legal action or as a neighborhood if a POA has been established.
Swanson said he was concerned the city was leaving everything up to citizens.
"Standing up here, it almost sounds like we're gonna pass the buck. I've had two-and-a-half months of passing the buck," he said. "The city should be taking that responsibility."
Sanders said that's not what he was trying to say, but rather he was trying to convey that residents have the right to enforce covenants in their neighborhoods.
"We probably need to take a look at that ordinance and make it better," he said. "I understand that. I'm just saying you have other avenues."
Council members also considered an ordinance to waive requirements for formal competitive bidding and purchase an ambulance. Council member Bob Cottingham said he was not in favor.
"I don't approve of making an ordinance to overrule another ordinance," Cottingham said.
"This to me tells me that if the department head wants something, he can just go buy whatever he wants," he said. "I think we're shooting ourselves in the foot, we're opening a Pandora's box."
Mayor Jackie Crabtree said he disagreed with that assessment of the situation.
"This is something that is specific to what we're needing," he said.
Council member Steven Guthrie said that this was a unique situation because they were looking at purchasing a demonstrator model, which came in far lower-priced than anything the city could take bids on.
The ordinance, as well as authorization for a loan to make the purchase, passed 3-1 with Cottingham in opposition.
Next, the council spoke with Police Chief Ryan Walker about his plan to purchase six squad cars this year.
Mayor Crabtree said that, since the previous meeting where city officials discussed this, the city has spent $3,000 repairing some of the higher-mileage police vehicles that were discussed.
Walker said those vehicles have had significant problems during calls since that meeting, though police were able to limp them back to the shops.
Cottingham said that he rarely sees the newer squad cars out on patrol and thinks they should be in the newer, lower-mileage cars.
Walker said that newer cars are on patrol, but the department does not have enough to go around. Additionally, he said, putting the newest cars entirely in patrol would cause them all to deteriorate more quickly because patrol vehicles see more use. Balancing them in different positions, he said, makes the most of the department's vehicles.
"If we put every new car as patrol, they're going to get worn out quicker," he said. "It mathematically doesn't make sense to have all new vehicles on patrol."
Moreover, he said that while some officers are listed in supervisory positions, those are simply first-line supervisors. They are not, he said, spending any less time on the city's streets than regular patrol officers, and everyone in the department responds to calls.
"Our administrative team stands by where we put cars," he said. "We've done a lot of work ... especially in the past two years to stretch these cars out."
The goal, he said, is to use money already in the budget by taking out a loan for five cars and buying one with cash. By making loan payments and buying one additional car each year, he said, the department can stay in budget and meet its needs immediately.
"It's been a problem for a long time, it should have been fixed a long time ago," Walker said. "These guys are out there risking their lives for us. We should at least give them a nice office to work out of. We are delaying our response to our citizens. So it's not just about us having nice fancy cars."
Additionally, he said, the department has a very high call volume for the number of officers it has. Unreliable cars, he said, are a liability.
Council member Ray Easley said he wanted to see officers in safer cars, but this was not easy for him to approve of.
"Since this news got out to the public... I haven't heard a single positive comment," he said. "It's hard for me to support that."
He was concerned, he said, that the department may not be able to keep its budget from expanding.
"If we okay this $200,000, six-car deal, I'm not going to approve a budget increase until I see that it's working," he said.
Easley agreed to vote for it, but said he will be keeping a close eye on the Police Department's budget.
Cottingham said the city has a limited budget and he was not in favor of having another loan against the city.
The council agreed 3-1 to purchase the squad cars, with Cottingham in opposition.
Mayor Crabtree said the city will start exploring finance options from here.
General News on 06/28/2017