Eureka audit encounters no problems

EUREKA SPRINGS — City council moved beyond its budget roadblock at Monday night’s meeting. Mayor Morris Pate withdrew his veto of council’s vote to cut the budgets of all departments by 20 percent, and alderman Butch Berry moved to withdraw the motion from Jan. 20 to ask the Finance Director to cut 20 percent. his motion passed 5-1, with alderman Lany Ballance voting no.

Alderman Ken Pownall had said at the Feb. 9 special meeting that if council could just get a budget passed, they could tweak it down the road, so with a budget passed and the veto resolved, the tweaking can begin.

Auditorium Commission

Berry said council needs to decide if they want to establish an Auditorium Commission as recommended by the Auditorium Committee sanctioned by council last year. At any rate, he said, they need to do something so that they are not in the same situation again next year of having no one running the Aud.

Alderman James DeVito said council gave itself this year to make a decision. they contracted with the City Advertising and Promotion Commission to handle it again this year, but those who studied the situation suggested a commission.

Pownall agreed council does not want to leave the situation in limbo, but he felt they needed to look at more finances involved with the Aud and discuss it in early April.

DeVito suggested getting members of the Auditorium Committee to meet with council in early April so they could answer all questions aldermen might have.

Pownall said they might need only half the committee since there were as many as 10 serving.

Berry said the committee did not discuss finances much because not much had been going on at the Aud during preceding years. He also reminded council that the committee had suggested, since most city auditoriums are not self-sufficient, the city could ask citizens to vote on a one-quarter percent sales tax to fund the Aud.

State audit

Finance director Lonnie Clark commented on the management letter and notes on financial statements of the state audit dated September 2011. He pointed out that there were no significant problems.

One issue mentioned in the audit was segregation of duties, but Clark said as with all small businesses, there are only so many employees and they segregate duties as best they can. He also mentioned he knew from his experience that if there had been significant issues, the mayor and finance director would have been asked to appear in Little Rock for a discussion.

In other business:

* Pownall moved to assign a number to the proposed dog control ordinance and place it on its first reading. the proposed ordinance was approved after it was read. then DeVito said since it has been on their agenda for so long, he moved to suspend the rules and place it on its second reading. the second reading passed unanimously.

* Since Ray Dotson had not responded to council’s request for him to present a list of loading and unloading places for his carriage business, they agreed to ask him one more time for this list. Weaver said that since Dotson is not operating yet, he is not in violation of the franchise agreement by not producing the list.

* Approval was given on its second reading to the proposed handicapped parking ordinance.

* There was unanimous approval of the resolution appropriating money to pay for the new zoning map.

* Berry told council that the Deer Hunt Committee had contacted the Arkansas Bowhunters Association for input. the committee was working on maps which will identify hunt areas, and Berry said Arkansas Game & Fish had approved a draft proposal for regulating the hunt.

* the following persons were unanimously approved to sit on their commissions: Doug Breitling and Greg Moon for the Historic District Commission; Ken Fugate for the Cemetery Commission.

During the comments portion of the meeting, Ballance said parents had spoken with her about being asked to sign a petition regarding the city budget as they were dropping off their kids for school. Ballance said the parents reported tactics used were heavy-handed and they feared for the safety of their children.

She said the parents wanted her to relay their request that such tactics should stop. She also said the petition contained names of persons who don’t even live in the city limits.

Berry answered that the budget covers funding ambulance service outside city limits, so it was likely that people outside city limits would have an interest in the petition and the budget.

Next meeting will be Monday, Feb. 27, at 6 p.m.