Entertainment district disparities captured Eureka Springs City Council’s attention at the Monday evening meeting. A temporary entertainment district was established for Oktoberfest, which will be in the city hall parking lot to give easy access to public bathrooms in the Aud and having the area extend from the courthouse to Spring and Center Sts.
Oktoberfest is Saturday, Sept. 28, and the district will be used from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., with music from 3 – to 6 and a beer garden tent set up. Another temporary district was approved for Pine Mountain Village on Sept. 6 and 7 for the Antique Car Show.
Alderman Susan Gruening suggested writing an ordinance for a permanent district at Pine Mountain Village to be voted on later, as having a regulated zone in that area would be good for business. Alderman Harry Meyer stridently opposed this, arguing that the owners have changed the area where alcohol is allowed without council approval.
Meyer added that he lives nearby, and he and his neighbors can hear the music and carousing and don’t like it. He said he represented the people, not just business owners.
Alderman Terry McClung said he would want to see the owner’s plan for the area before he would feel comfortable approving it, and alderman David Avanzino said he wanted to make sure that council would not be liable for anything that happened on the property and that the observation tower on the property would be off limits to people drinking.
Alderman Autumn Slane said the ordinance would be good because the owners were trying to revive the area, but she wanted to add that there would be an annual review with council having the right to revoke the permanent status if things were not going well. Meyer interjected that the area needed reviving because the owners of the property had run off their own tenants and now thought beer would solve their problems. Council voted 4-2 to writing an ordinance to be voted on later.
CAPC petition gets more input
Slane addressed a petition circulating by Pat Matsukis to eliminate the City Advertising and Promotion Commission and repurposing its tax. Slane said she was terrified Matsukis would succeed in putting a Yes or No on the November ballot and that citizens would not be fully aware of the consequences of getting rid of the CAPC and the tax. She argued that council needed to come up with a “fail safe” plan to protect businesses and the city.
Alderman Steve Holifield, chair of the CAPC, alleged that Matsukis misrepresented the petition, telling people it will allow for the tax to be redirected for use on infrastructure and it would get rid of property tax. He asked if this might be a way they could fight the petition, as this is false.
Holifield encouraged people who had signed the petition under this false belief contact Matsukis and have her remove their names from the petition. He said she has until the August 21 and currently doesn’t have enough signatures to get it on the ballot.
Mayor Butch Berry said that the tax must go to advertising and tourism and cannot be used on infrastructure. He brought up how council had tried to establish a one cent tax on supporting the Aud and the city’s infrastructure and they were unable to pass it.
Berry said this was the second time an attempt to disband the CAPC had been made, with the last time resulting in commissioners being called on to be arrested for holding an illegal meeting.
Avanzino, a CAPC commissioner wanted citizens to know that studies by businesses have shown that with the tax repealed and the loss of tourist dollars, every citizen in the city limits would have to spend $21,000 a day at local businesses to make up the lost revenue. He added with the CAPC gone it would impact sales tax and liquor tax, and that with no tourists coming in, infrastructure would only get worse.
Berry backed this up by admitting that before Covid he thought the city relied on only a portion of money from tourism, but when the city first shut down and “became like a ghost town” he was faced with the possibility of laying off police, fire, and EMS workers. He said he realized that 100 percent of the city’s revenue comes from tourism, a clean and safe industry that kept the city funded.
Several aldermen asked if they could stop the petition because Matsukis was getting signatures under false promises. Avanzino said he thought that she had not thought through the ramifications of the petition, and neither had many of the people who had signed it.
Holifield said he asked Matsukis why she was doing this, and she said she wanted the town to be like it was 40 years ago when there weren’t all of the tourists and bikers, when the town was just active during the summer and shut down in the winter.
McClung objected to this, saying 40 years ago there were plenty of tourists. But Holifield said that was the goal of the contingent creating the petition, to go back to a past they imagined where the town wasn’t so full of tourists.
Avanzino addressed the city’s citizens, telling them to ask themselves what they want for the city, to educate themselves and not just talk bad about the CAPC from their computers, but to attend meetings and understand what it does and how it helps the city. If there are no tourists, he stressed, there will be no money for infrastructure. Holifield said there would be a workshop Wednesday, August 14, at 4 p.m. about the CAPC using the VRBO system and then a meeting about hiring a new finance director.
Building Inspector hired
Berry announcing that a new building inspector has been hired, Paul Sutherland, who has worked in construction for 40 years, and McClung asking about the No Smoking signs that used to be in Basin Park and if Parks department would be putting them back as people have been smoking there.
Slane, Avanzino, and Holifield, in their closing remarks stressed again that people needed to educate themselves on the CAPC and the taxes involved and support the CAPC rather than endanger the city’s main source of revenue.
- Two new CAPC commissioners, Robert Schmidt and Heather Wilson, were voted in, and Brita Rekve voted to sit on The Cemetery commission.
- Public Works Director Simon Wiley about the progress on the sewer improvements, which he said were not going forward as they were waiting for funding. Council waived bids and accepted a state approved company that will do the work for $37,254; they also made a motion to approve purchasing a 50-horsepower pump for $34,000.
- Resolution 869, to vacate a portion of Dolores Ave., will be reviewed during a public hearing. McClung in particular wanted to make sure that no other properties would be affected by the vacation of the street.