By Joel Phelps
The Arkadelphian

The Arkadelphia Board of Directors will meet Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Boardroom with a few items to discuss.

Closing old streets
A public hearing will first be held regarding the closure of two platted but never developed city streets, Butler and Cass.

Butler Street, located between Clinton and Caddo streets on blocks 19 and 20 of the Browning Addition, is an unopened street 40 feet wide running north and south.

Cass Street would have connected Clinton Street to Clay between 9th and 10th streets. It too runs north and south and ends about 230 feet south of Clay Street.

Talking trash
The city’s sanitation department makes two to four daily trips to haul residents’ garbage to a landfill in Bauxite. The semi used to do so broke down recently and had to be towed back to Arkadelphia for repairs. A memo from City Manager Gary Brinkley indicates this is a common occurrence.

The truck was repaired, but put the sanitation department behind its on its hauling schedule. Brinkley noted in a memo to directors that Arkadelphia is the transfer and haul station for all of Clark County. “When our rig goes down it becomes a monumental issue,” Brinkley said.

A bid has been placed on a used vehicle from another governmental agency.

Slurred streets
The city opened bids recently to price slurry sealing of an estimated 85,000 square yards of road in 2022. Missouri Petroleum gave the lowest bid of $3.06 per square yard, underbidding Vance Brothers by 18 cents per square yard. Brinkley noted in a memo that the city had used Vance Brothers for two decades.

If the bid is accepted, half the $260,000 will be funded through the street department’s annual program, and half will be paid using Moving Arkadelphia Forward funds.

American Rescue Plan Act funds
The city last year received $1.1 million from the American Rescue Plan Act. The U.S. Treasury recently gave cities the OK to use ARPA funds for first responders’ salaries and benefits.

Directors are set to consider a resolution for the city to use those funds to offset payroll for police officers. Brinkley said discussion with City Treasurer Shacresha Wilson led to the decision to use the funds for police salary reimbursement.

The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 3. The meetings are open to the public and may also be viewed via the livestream.