The Pine Bluff City Council on Monday approved two items they hope to present to the public as crime-fighting ideas at a town hall meeting Wednesday.
The town hall meeting will be held at 4 p.m. Wednesday in council chambers at the civic complex.
An ordinance the council hopes will resurrect an existing resident-led Crime Advisory Commission was unanimously approved. The council also adopted an emergency clause, causing the ordinance to go into immediate effect.
The commission will be made up of nine members of the public. Each council member and the mayor will nominate a commission member, subject to the approval of the full council.
The commission will establish a regular meeting date and time — preferably monthly, according to the legislation — and vary its meeting locations so that they are held in the different wards and neighborhoods of the city.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The commission will serve in an advisory role and will not have any supervisory authority over the police department.
The commission was originally established in the 1990s but has not been functioning in recent years.
Wednesday’s crime-focused town hall meeting will be the second special Public Safety committee meeting on the subject since the Nov. 13 shooting death of Walter Ashley Jr., 39, outside the Three Gables nightclub on West Pullen Avenue and the public outcry that followed.
A subsequent homicide victim, Michael L. King, 27, was discovered Saturday, bringing the homicide count to 18 for Jefferson County and 16 within the Pine Bluff city limits for the year to date.
The follow-up meeting is intended to give residents an opportunity to share their concerns and suggestions about reducing crime, Pine Bluff Police Department spokesman Lt. Bob Rawlinson said in a press release. Mayor Carl A. Redus Jr., Police Chief Brenda Davis-Jones, city council members and other city officials are expected to attend.
Also Monday the council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution that instructs the police department to forward to the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Board all incident reports involving establishments that sell alcohol.
Alcohol permits have been a topic of discussion since the shooting outside the Three Gables, which in addition to killing Ashley, injured three other people. At the time of the incident, the nightclub was on probation with the ABC Board for previous violent incidents that violated the ABC Board’s “good neighbor” policy.
In the public discussion that followed the incident, police officials said they had been called to more than 140 incidents at the club this year. ABC officials said that there had been more incidents at the Three Gables than they were aware of.
“If you’re going to say there are 144 incidents that happened at a club, and ABC only got two or three of them, something’s wrong with that picture,” said Alderman Irene Holcomb, who sponsored the resolution. “They will determine what’s a good neighbor policy.”
The resolution does not apply just to nightclubs, but includes all businesses that sell alcohol.
“We have some establishments around here that are regular nuisances,” Holcomb said.
Assistant Police Chief Ivan Whitfield said that the police department had no objection to the proposal and can comply with its instructions.
In other business, the council:
• Discussed in executive session a proposed resolution that would make Vickie Conaway director of the Human Resources Department rather than interim director, the position she has held for many years. Redus said after the executive session that no decision was made on the item.
• Unanimously approved a resolution that authorizes the Transit Department to hold a “Try Transit Week” Dec. 18-24 when rides would be free, with the goal of familiarizing more residents with the system.
• Unanimously approved a two-part proposed budget adjustment for the city attorney’s office. The proposal takes $34,800 from unused overtime to help pay for the city’s Legal Defense Fund bill from the Arkansas Municipal League. The city budgeted $137,000, but the bill came in at $171,791. Also, the proposal takes $5,000 from undesignated funds to add to the department’s dues and subscriptions budget.
• Voted 5-3 against a proposed resolution that would have directed all non-uniformed city employees who interact with the public in the field to wear or display a badge or other identification. Holcomb, Thelma Walker and Steven Mays voted in favor of the item, which was inspired by a request from the Planning Commission so that they have identification to show residents when they are out in the community looking at properties related to Planning Commission business. Redus said that identification laminates will be made for the commissioners.
• Unanimously approved a $20,549 budget adjustment to reimburse the Street Department for materials used in the site development and construction of the Barraque Street Plaza. The funds come from the five-eighths-cent sales tax enacted by the city in 2011.
• Unanimously approved a $9,817 budget adjustment to cover a bill from the Arkansas Municipal League Drug Testing Program. The funds come from unused Fire Department overtime.
• Sent to committee a proposed resolution that would authorize the sale of property at 5421 W. Short Fourth Ave. to Linda Cole on an installation payment plan not to exceed $27,450, with financing coming through the city’s Homebuyer Assistance Program for low- to moderate-income families.
• Unanimously approved an ordinance that requires all personnel records be transferred to and maintained by the Human Resources Department. Currently, some records are kept by safety officers in the police and fire departments. The proposal would require that all records be transferred by Jan. 1, 2012.
• Unanimously approved a $1,250 budget adjustment to purchase a new computer for the Parks Department community center director. The funding comes from undesignated funds.
• Unanimously approved a resolution that authorizes the city to contract with Southwest Employee Assistance Programs of Little Rock to perform addiction treatment and stress prevention training for employees and anyone who lives in their household and training for management-level employees on productivity and other services for an annual cost of $7,885.
• Voted 7-0 to approve an ordinance updating the zoning code as it pertains to in-home businesses. Two other proposed zoning-code ordinances were sent back to the Planning Commission for more detail.
• Unanimously approved a resolution to put the cost of correcting nuisances at a list of 24 properties on the tax books as delinquent taxes.
• Unanimously approved a ordinances rezoning 120 Grider Field Road and 2801 S. Elm St.
• Were introduced to officials with ETC Engineers and Architects Inc. of Little Rock, the firm recently selected to oversee the capital improvement projects that will be paid for out of the five-eighths-cent sales tax and its accompanying bond issues. Initial meetings between city officials and ETC will begin later this month.