Cameron Denoewer thanked council on Monday during Public Commentsfor being cautious about the Community Center Foundation proposal for renting space for city government meetings, urging aldermen to do due diligence in paying attention to where Foundation money is coming from. “Really look at what is laid out in black and white as opposed to what you’re being told… it all goes back to the same people over and over and over, and that does not promote growth; it yields attrition.” He closed by noting, “Follow the money, and you’ll see what is going on with this dirty, dirty deal.”
Eric Knowles then spoke to aldermen about unrealistic expectations, saying the Community Center Foundation had offered to rent meeting space for city meetings for $417 per month, or approximately $27 per meeting, yet they balked at the offer because the space would not be set aside exclusively for city government meetings. Knowles pointed out CCF offered adequate locked storage for the city’s video equipment and priority booking for the room.
He also noted the city has never had exclusive use of its meeting space. In addition, he surveyed the cities of Berryville, Huntsville, Pea Ridge, Fayetteville and Springdale, and they all reported their city council meeting space was used or available for other meetings. “Exclusivity was not a requirement for them. It should not be for us,” Knowles contended. He suggested, instead, that council look at the space and the financial considerations.
Joyce Knowles then pointed out that council had on its agenda discussion of discontinuing showing council meetings on YouTube because of the cost of transcribing closed captioning. She pointed out that YouTube provides closed captioning for free.
She added even if the point was for editing the captioning, Eric Knowles long ago gave the mayor’s office information about a transcription service that edits captioning for clarity for $1 per minute. She said prior to this meeting, there had been 2531 minutes during council meetings in 2017, which would have cost an average for 25 meetings of $102 per meeting. She pointed out council would have spent $16 dealing just with approving the minutes at this meeting.
She also stated she never insisted all city meetings be moved to the Auditorium, only city council meetings, and also only council meetings have the videos captioned and edited. She asked if the city had taken sufficient actions to ensure that individuals with disabilities were served adequately. “How much is too much to provide access to city government for even one citizen?” she asked. “Are the disabled to be denied? I believe we have room to compromise on the cost of all this captioning.”
Other items
- Aldermen scheduled a budget workshop Tuesday, Dec. 19, at 3 p.m.
- David Mitchell announced there is a vacancy on Planning, CAPC, Hospital and the HDC.
Next meeting will be Monday, Jan. 8, at 6 p.m.