Council holds on budget approval, recognizes champion Bears

The Conway City Council voted Tuesday night to hold a decision to approve the city's 2009 budget.

The budget includes requests from city departments for capital expenditures that, as the budget was presented Tuesday night, will not be addressed until mid-year.

Mayor Tab Townsell explained after the meeting that these expenditures should wait until the city can "see what the economy does."

The most expensive of these requests comes from the Conway Police Department, which has requested 10 new patrol cars at a cost of over $600,000 including the computer, video and radio equipment to outfit them.

Chief of Police A. J. Gary said Tuesday that the department would be better served with more cars to be assigned to individual patrolmen rather than "pool" cars assigned to various patrolmen as needed.

Patrol cars assigned to individual officers, he said, can last more than twice as long as "pool" cars and can be used to further the department's program of having officers take their patrol cars home, where their presence provides a crime deterrent in their neighborhoods.

Not all requests are going unfilled as the budget is currently presented. Of $1,115,201 in requests, $143,2oo worth are being met. These include new and replacement turnout gear and replacement fire hose for the Conway Fire Department, sirens for Animal Welfare Unit vehicles and global information systems (GIS) software for the city's planning and permits department.

Several personnel requests are likewise going to be considered mid-year, though five new police officer and six new firefighter positions are funded as the budget is currently presented.

In other business, the council did approve resolutions to proceed with planned street work including improving capacity at Donaghey Avenue and Dave Ward Drive and the planned roundabouts at Harkrider Street and Siebenmorgen Road and Harkrider and Flemming streets and authorizing the allocation of an additional $264,982 in pay-as-you-go quarter-cent sales tax funds for the roundabout projects over what was originally budgeted.

Alderman Mark Vaught voted against the resolution to appropriate funds for these projects as he does not agree with the roundabout projects.

Vaught explained after the meeting that he feels there wasn't enough research done to warrant a large expenditure and, though he said the city's existing roundabouts seem to be working to good effect, none approach the scale of the one proposed for Harkrider Street and Siebenmorgen Road.

Vaught said that he sees the Harkrider roundabout projects as an experiment, and an expensive one. If it does work out, however, Vaught said he'd be the first to recommend one at Highway 64 and Harkrider Street (near the "old" Walmart).

A $64,000 bid from Recycle Tech for a Styrofoam densifyer was also accepted. This device will enable the Conway Santiation Department to begin collecting and recycling Styrofoam as early as January.

"So save your Styrofoam from Christmas," Townsell said.

The council also recognized the University of Central Arkansas Bears football team, which, according to Townsell as he presented the team with a key to the city, is the 2009 Southland Conference Champions.

A NCAA by-law means that the Bears aren't eligible championship title as the team is in its third of four years of "transition" to Division I, but they were the last team standing on the field, Townsell said, and that fills the city's definition of the word "champion." By resolution of the city council, Dec. 9, 2008 is UCA Bears Championship Football Day.

The council also approved:

A resolution setting a public hearing to discuss closing a drainage and utility easement located in the Cresthaven Subdivision, Phase III;

A resolution establishing the intent of the City of Conway to annex certain land South of Prince Street which has been completely surrounded by the city limits;

An extension to a conditional use permit for the Ward bed & breakfast located at 1912 Caldwell Street;

Bids from Gwatney Pontiac Buick GMC for a one ton truck (4 door crew cab) and a one ton standard cab truck for the Street Dept;

An ordinance appropriating revenue funds from the Arkansas Municipal League to the Sanitation Department;

A bid from Handi Ramp for a Mobile Loading Ramp for the Sanitation Department;

An ordinance accepting grant proceeds from ADEQ & appropriating funds to the Sanitation Department;

An ordinance appropriating funds for recycling efforts at the Conway Sanitation Department;

An ordinance waiving bids for the Sanitation Department to purchase one container/compactor and one self compactor;

Remove fixed assets (duty weapons) from the inventory listing and to dispose of these items;

And an ordinance accepting court ordered forfeiture assets from the Circuit Court to the CPD.

(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)