April Agenda Prep Meeting

Emily Young
4 hours ago
3 min read

Our agenda and regular meetings are both held in the 2nd floor Chambers of City Hall. They are also both live streamed on Facebook and YouTube.

See the agenda prep items here:

This post covers the finance and agenda prep meeting on April 7, 2026.

Finance Prep - 5:30pm

Item 1 + 1a: Resolution to accept funds from AEDC and execute the grant agreement to fund the development of industrial site of S. Elmira Ave.

Recommends passing. This is a 90/10 split. The grant would total $237.546, the city would cover the remaining $26,394.

Item 2: Appropriation of $74,000 to fund the efforts toward Local Historic Preservation via the Certified Local Government Grant Program. Funds would be fully reimbursed by grant.

Recommends passing.

Item 3 + 4: Appropriation of $26,912.50, and $215,886, to be used to fund the Spring Stipend for the Street Fund Employees' Salaries and the General Funds Departments' Salaries.

Recommends passing. This will provide a stipend of $1,000 for full time and $500 for part time employees of the city.

Item 5: Appropriation of $478,556.52 to be used to fund the purchase of fire station alerting system to be paid out in 3 annual installments.

Recommends passing. This will improve response times up to 1 minute.

Item 6: Resolution to modify contract with Blackstone construction in regards to Downtown communications improvement with Ritter.

Recommends passing.

Item 7: Resolution to accept bid from Curb Time Solutions for 2026 sidewalk connectivity on Detroit from E B St to E 4th St.

Recommends passing.

Item 8: Consideration of approval for the 1st Quarter 2026 reimbursement for Boys and Girls Club in the amount of $17,177.01

Recommends passing.

Item 9: Resolution to apply for TAP/RTP grant to complete the trail connection project connecting Sequoya Connector Trail to Russell Byway trail. It will run from Boys and Girls Club down D&R railroads to 19th St, continue east down 19th Street to Knoxville Ave and South on Knoxville to the pedestrian crossing at the High School.

Recommends passing.

Downtown Project Update: The final striping will be the last portion of project, will have a pattern of bricks for crosswalk. Thermoplastic product that adheres to concrete and asphalt will be used on new surfaces; parking spaces and other markings. Within 2 weeks the ductwork should be done by court house. Poles have gotten shorter, Entergy has moved a good portion of assets underground. Communications companies are underway, hopefully will be done within 6-8 weeks. Working on drainage issue at Arkansas and B St, there has been standing water. Will then remove concrete along B Street and replace with asphalt from Denver to Commerce, then Commerce to Arkansas. 2-3 weeks for B Street to be finished up. Adjustments needed for signals from ARDOT on pedestrian buttons.

Agenda Prep - 6:00pm

Public Works Report

Waterloo Ave & 2nd St project 99% complete - road is open for use
Knoxville Ave & E. Main St signal still in progress
Prairie Creek project; Bridges are scheduled for demo during Summer Break. There will be announcements made before hand to alert citizens of this happening.
Councilman Gray brought up the issue of wires being left behind by fiber companies, Ritter, Optimum, Brightspeed, etc. This has been an ongoing issue for over a year. If the community sees these piles of wires hanging from poles or laying on the ground please contact the city to alert them to this issue.