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Mountain Home City Council held a regularly scheduled meeting last Thursday at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
Last week’s ordinances covered three items regarding residential and commercial properties at Coley Drive, Arkansas Avenue, sections of Wallace Knob Road, and 60 Roberts Drive.
For the property on Coley Drive and Arkansas Avenue, the petitioner, William E. Coulter, requested that his property be changed from Residential R-1 to Residential R-2 to make way for new triplexes or fourplexes in the area.
The petition received one objection from a member of the public who did not name herself. During her conversation with City Council, the woman raised concerns about building “Section 8” housing after claiming the phrase was mentioned during a planning committee meeting. She asked who would be responsible for the properties.
The resident said she lived two blocks away from the property in question.
Ted Sanders, the lawyer representing Coulter, said that he knew of no plans for the property owners to build HUD housing. Roger Morgan, the City of Mountain Home’s attorney, said that the City Council usually does not base its rezoning ordinances based off of potential HUD developments.
The ordinance was passed with an emergency clause. The ordinance for the properties on 60 Roberts Drive and Wallace Knob Road both passed without objection.
Following the passing of the first three ordinances, Danny Ellington of Engineering Services Inc. gave a presentation on the final plat of Big Creek Patio Homes and the future improvements that will be made to the plat.
The improvements included new easements and retention ponds and an extension of Turnberry Court. The easements and extensions were turned over to the city after City Council approved a dedication ordinance.
Following the dedication ordinance, the Parks Department requested permission to scrap old light fixtures. That ordinance was approved unanimously.
The Water, Parks and Fire Departments also requested approval of a list of items to be sold at auction. Some items include an 18-inch chainsaw, a 2 ¼ ton floor jack, generators, fluorescent light fixtures, a 4,000 gallon storage tank, desks, chairs, computer equipment, baseball equipment, riding lawn mowers and more. That ordinance was passed unanimously.
Following discussion of auctioning off city items, Mayor Adams requested the council’s approval of updating several ARDOT grant applications. The grants are expected to help cover costs for trail work at McCabe Park. The council approved Adams request to move forward with updating the grant applications.
For the final major discussion of the evening, Arnold Knox requested that City Council approve the use of ASTERRA SAR Satellite imagery to detect underground chlorinated water leaks within the city’s water line system.
ASTERRA uses Utilis-patented technology for infrastructure condition assessment, pipe replacement modeling, and leak detection in urban treated water networks, using L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mounted on a satellite. The technology is based on a proprietary algorithm that detects soil moisture resulting from treated water leaks, through the analysis of SAR data.
Two pricing options were presented during the discussion. One for $18,000 and one for $36,000. City Council approved the $36,000 option.
The scans will be completed over the summer.
Finally, City Council took up an ordinance redefining certain job classifications and compensations plans within the city’s departments. The Parks Supervisor position will be removed and replaced by two new positions for Buildings Supervisor and Grounds Supervisor.
The last ordinance for the night covered updates to the city’s personnel policy handbook.
