[0:00] welcome to the Batesville city council
the lawmaking body for the city of
[0:03] Batesville moving the city forward mayor
Rick elal city clerk Denise Johnson City
[0:08] attorney Tim miton along with Council
from left to right Paige Hubbert Landon
[0:13] Reeves Dr Scott Frederick breny Bennett
and from right to left Fred crew Julie
[0:17] hle Chris P and Dr Doug Matthews mayor
and Council welcomes you to the meeting
[0:23] okay it's now 12:15 I'd like to call the
meeting to order Miss Johnson would you
[0:27] please uh the r call Miss Bennett here
Mr Fredericks here hle here H Mr
[0:35] C did what oh she did okay uh Mr KW here
Dr Matthews Mr P here Mr
[0:45] reefs okay is there motion to approve
the
[0:48] agenda second motion of second all in
favor signify by saying I I okay going
[0:54] right into new business uh first on the
agenda is to go into executive session
[1:00] uh is there a motion all moved Motion in
a second all in favor to go into
[1:06] executive session sign five saying I all
pose Light Side okay we are in executive
[1:12] session you say PA just pulled up okay
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[3:08] you're Live's not
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[3:19] on so
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jealous wow
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[3:37] ain't hold that call okay I think we
have everybody back in and uh coming out
[3:43] of the executive session uh I'm going to
go ahead and turn this over to our
[3:47] chairman of our Public Safety Committee
and for a recommendation to for the
[3:53] hiring of our new uh police chief I'm in
the city council meeting let me call you
[3:58] back
only
[4:03] Doug um we met a few sorry about that we
met a few days ago and interviewed a
[4:09] couple of candidates I will say that we
felt like uh that we were lucky in that
[4:15] um both of those candidates were uh
imminently qualified and could have done
[4:20] a good job so while that made us feel
lucky at the same time it made it a hard
[4:25] decision uh but uh we did reach
consensus and it was the consensus of
[4:30] the committee that we recommend to the
council that Mr John scarbro be named
[4:35] our next police chief so I would make
that into the form of a
[4:39] motion second have a motion and a second
Mr Fredericks uh any further
[4:47] discussion okay do you want to do a roll
call on that I do
[4:51] okay okay Miss Bennett yes Mr Fredericks
yes Miss hle yes Miss hubard yes Mr Krug
[4:58] yes Dr Matthews yes Mr P yes with that
being said our new police chief is Mr
[5:06] John
[5:16] star looking forward to John serving and
I know he'll do our community well and
[5:23] uh I think he's got a lot of support out
there and no speech uh do we have a
[5:28] little speech do you want to say
anything John I would love to love to
[5:31] hear your
comments no sir I did not prepare spe oh
[5:36] you kept telling me it wasn't a done
deal
[5:40] so you kept me nervous long enough uh I
do want to thank the council and the
[5:45] mayor uh I'll do my best to to fill a
position to the best of my ability and
[5:51] try to make you guys
proud to all of you guys thank you uh I
[5:57] prob I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for
every one of those guys out there so
[6:02] thank all of you and you guys thank you
very much and your and your and your
[6:07] wife my daughter daughter thank you too
uh for allowing me to apply for this my
[6:16] brother Lenny he probably worked harder
than
[6:19] anybody to get me here he called
everybody in the world I think even the
[6:24] pope answered for it so so thank all of
you for the support absolutely thank you
[6:31] looking forward to many years of service
service we greatly appreciate all of our
[6:36] officers and uh uh because we know
you're you know one big family and uh
[6:41] and that's important
yes very
[6:47] important okay guys I'm sorry to get a
picture go ahead and
[6:54] Jour well now we've
got have well we've got another discuss
[7:00] comments all right
yeah okay while you guys are doing
[7:06] photos there I'm going to go ahead and
uh uh mayor's comments and we're going
[7:11] to move on I know we've been working
with the BFW for the uh actually the
[7:16] purchase of their property because of
her sales tax refinance back in August
[7:21] and I know we have U we've worked Miss
Crystal Johnson who is economic
[7:26] development we contract with her with
the chamber Mr Fred Krug I know he has
[7:31] been uh working with them as well uh we
were um actually uh our meeting in
[7:38] August we met with their leadership and
they said let's both get appraisals uh
[7:44] we uh we ended up getting an appraisal
uh we felt like the appraisal was a
[7:48] little bit low uh so we felt like to be
for sure that we went ahead and went out
[7:53] to seek a second uh appraisal and that
appraisal uh the first one was 350 this
[7:59] one came back at 610,000 uh but we you
know we've always wanted to be a good
[8:04] Ste of the money as well as our
taxpayers and of course that property is
[8:08] going to be part of our new parks
initiative but we felt like it was a
[8:12] little low and we wanted to definitely
be fair uh with them uh they have
[8:16] engaged you know the attorney so our
conversation has actually been back and
[8:21] forth with the attorney we started uh
late February early March actually we
[8:26] started in September uh talking and
that's when they said that Mr U uh well
[8:31] their new attorney would be the one
representing so like I said we've kind
[8:35] of gone back and forth we thrown some
numbers out there verbally and uh they
[8:40] have not accepted our offer so we did
have an offer on the table of
[8:45] 800,000 uh even with an appraisal of
610,000 uh so we're to the point you
[8:50] know we need to start moving dirt work
and like I said we're very conscious of
[8:54] you know them trying to help them find a
place at the very first meeting in early
[8:59] August when Crystal and I met with them
that was one thing they asked us to do
[9:04] and we tried we tried to do that um but
like I said we have not uh they have not
[9:11] accepted the offer so Mr mson do you
want to what's our next uh next step at
[9:16] this point should file for a
condemnation and the judge
[9:21] basically can make it immediate or give
them a give them a reasonable amount of
[9:26] time which you know they may argue hey
we need a month or two
[9:30] that may be the only thing we're
haggling about at that point but they
[9:32] can give it to us the next day and and
they have in the past but I'm imagining
[9:36] the BFW probably try to slow down a
little
[9:39] bit just go do it based on the appraisal
of $610,000 and then we put that in the
[9:44] registry of the court and we go from
there okay and if they want to come back
[9:49] and give us a counter offer at that
point we can we can always negotiate
[9:53] till there's a
final okay so did you guys hear that did
[9:59] you say
we can give them two choices is that am
[10:02] I understanding that
right one we can kick them out tomorrow
[10:06] or one we can give him a little time
well what I'm saying me up to the judge
[10:11] the judge could kick him out tomorrow
okay which I think they're going to give
[10:15] him a
reasonable guess 30 days 60 days
[10:18] something like that so the senat would
get file of course and we' we've also
[10:22] said by the end of August I think that's
the date that we've actually given them
[10:25] so we're trying to give them that lead
time but you know the longer we wait the
[10:28] the father it pushes our project down
the line and once we start doing the
[10:32] dirt work uh it's going to cost us extra
if we have to pull the crew back in
[10:36] later uh when they're not you know if
they move off the job site well and it's
[10:41] worth pointing out I think this was
overwhelmingly approved by our
[10:45] citizens and so we we have a debt to
them absolutely to move this project
[10:52] forward like they clearly wanted us to
do and and the reasonable cost and and I
[10:58] think you know everybody in here has
great respect uh you know for our
[11:01] veterans as a matter of fact we have a
veteran Mr Fred crew uh you know that
[11:07] serves on the council and so we do not
disrespect them we are visiting with
[11:10] another veterans group here of another
talking about getting a new uh Veterans
[11:15] Memorial uh you know at Riverside Park
and so I've act actively engaged another
[11:22] group and uh hopefully we can make that
a reality but I guess with that all
[11:27] being said do we want to
uh get a motion in the form of uh
[11:32] letting Mr miton go ahead and file for
the
[11:37] condemnation so moved second have a
motion and a second but Dr Matthews any
[11:43] further
discussion all in favor signify by
[11:46] saying I I oppose like sign okay if
there's no further business oh yeah by
[11:53] the way uh the city county uh meeting
tomorrow is at uh 5 uh 5: :00 5 to 6:30
[12:00] Mr Rex Nelson from the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette will be speaking uh very well
[12:06] vers on Arkansas Politics as well as
cities and communities in the state of
[12:11] Arkansas so if you can make it please
come out and with that being said if
[12:16] there's no further business is there a
motion to adjourn move second have a
[12:21] motion second all in
favor Pizza Pizza we are Pizza in the
[12:27] back guys
this concludes our meeting tonight the
[12:31] mayor and city council thanks you for
tuning in to the meeting our air times
[12:35] are Monday 7:00 p.m. Thursday 6:00 p.m.
Friday 11:30 a.m. and all other days 400
[12:42] p.m. again our city council says thank
you and good night