Holiday Island City Council reviewed their budget at the start of the Sept. 17 meeting and found that they were mostly under budget, with a few exceptions, and that the city’s biggest expenditures to date are property and fuel taxes.
Council member Lynn Dumas said that they had only one short-term rental business application for August and that he will be streamlining the short-term rental renewal application process, as permits only last a year, and as long as the business is being maintained, permits must be renewed annually.
Council member Barbara Kuhn interjected that a major problem with short-term rental applications is that people are not doing them and just trying to run businesses without giving what is due the city. She asked how code enforcement was going, and Dumas replied that the city is responsible for code enforcement. He added that he will be updating the website to make sure people applying online have up to date information.
Mayor Dan Kees said Code Enforcement Officer Rusty Rusterholz is doing his best to stay on top of the situation, but he can’t hunt down every person. Dumas added that it was a significant number of people and in one hour he had identified three people not complying. Kees said they need to be identified and sent letters, and if they do not respond they will be sent a cease-and-desist order.
Other items of interest
- Dumas asked interim Fire Chief Gary Martin how many accidents the fire department dealt with in the past few weeks, particularly on a stretch of road being resurfaced where the speed limit of 55 mph just before the bridge heading into Eureka Springs. Martin said four accidents, with Dumas asking how long until ARDoT fixes the road. Martin replied that they needed to bring in not only ARDoT, but also the sheriff’s department. Martin then told council that he has been made a reserve deputy of the sheriff’s department.
- Kees shifted to the Holiday Island City Advertising and Promotion Commission which will be holding its first public meeting Thursday, Sept. 26 at 5 p.m., saying the HICAPC needed to push for the short-term rental tax on the ballot this year. As a cautionary note, he mentioned how a Eureka Springs petition to disband their CAPC and do away with the that tax had endangered not just Eureka Springs, but other towns in Carroll County, saying it was short sighted of the people who petitioned against the CAPC.
- Linda Graves gave an update on the state’s internet accessibility project, saying around mid- to late October internet providers will be bidding for installing the infrastructure.
- Council discussed their drafting of an Ordinance on Record Retention Policy. Going over the current draft, several areas that needed to be revised were found and discussion continued about what should be kept and in what forms. Kees decided to table the ordinance until further work was done on it.
- Kees presented Resolution 2024-010 for a Road Paving Program for 2024-2025. He had applied for grant money to support a paving program as well as plan to utilize tax money for street improvement. The resolution passed and Kees was authorized to proceed with bids.
- Council passed Ordinance 2024-012 Establishing the Length of Terms for Planning commissioners when an oversight was encountered that those commissioners had assigned themselves terms to last until Sept. 30, when the city council was supposed to define those term lengths. They moved the date for term end to Dec. 31 to keep commissioners on a full year term.
- HIFD radio expenses needed to be adjusted from the original quote of $48,000 to the now confirmed amount of $54,091.41. Kees said the city will cover the cost of programming the radios and supplying new radios. There are going to be 17 radios in the field, one truck needs a mobile radio, five new radios are for volunteers, and the county is getting ten radios for “rural volunteers”. Between rural, county, and city contributions, more than $100,000 will help.
- Old equipment is being given to the city’s water and road departments. Council agreed to the price change and the budget will be amended. By January 1, 2025, all five radio towers and all radios should be up and running.