Council debates impact fees, herbicides

EUREKA SPRINGS -- Does the city need impact fees? Are herbicides bad for you? These topics dominated discussion at Monday night's City Council meeting. (The answers are both yes and no, depending on whom you ask.)

Impact fees inappropriate

In a Planning Commission report to the council, Commissioner Ken Pownall said he had "taken a completely different stance" on the city implementing impact fees, following recent planning commissioner training in Harrison.

"What I walked away with, in three days of commissioner training, was that impact fees are great for rapidly expanding areas, but I spoke to no one who really felt impact fees were the wave of the future for towns like Eureka Springs."

Alderman Rae Hahn objected, suggesting the city should pursue the subject nonetheless, "so if the growth does take place, we'll be ready for it."

Other things come first

Pownall replied Hahn was right in theory, but other issues needed attention more than impact fees.

He said developing application fees and long-term capital improvements both should take priority.

"Both the city's vision plan and land use plan need work," Pownall added. "I had city planners from Little Rock saying, 'You're attacking these issues without even a city plan?'"

Alderman Eric Scheunemann joined Hahn in defense of impact fees and said "just listening to experts" was wrong.

Planning lacks quorum, again

Pownall went on to say Planning was once again without a quorum, following Robert "Butch" Berry's election to council, which necessitated his stepping down from Planning.

Newly re-elected Alderman Joyce Zeller argued in defense of Pownall.

"Since Planning is paralyzed, we should focus on filling the Planning Commission," she said. "We're just spinning our wheels here, so I suggest we defer this to Planning until they are ready to deal with it."

Herbicide use by city

Scheunemann and Alderman Patrick Brammer brought back to the table the use of herbicides by the city. Scheunemann said he'd had little luck finding ordinances involving herbicide use but had found information from the state of Maine on the issue, which he would e-mail council members.

'Basically watered-down Roundup'

Public Works Director Dwayne Allen came forward to say the herbicide his department used was basically "watered-down Roundup."

A 2000 review of the available literature in The Journal of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology concluded that "under present and expected conditions of new use, there is no potential for Roundup herbicide to pose a health risk to humans."

According to the National Pesticide Information Center's fact sheet on Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the herbicide "is practically nontoxic by ingestion or by skin contact. It showed no toxic effects when fed to animals for two years, and only produced rare cases of reproductive effects when fed in extremely large doses to rodents and dogs. It has not demonstrated any increase in cancer rates in animal studies and is poorly absorbed in the digestive tract. Glyphosate has no significant potential to accumulate in animal tissue."

Open to alternatives

Allen said Public Works planned to trim whenever possible, to avoid having to use herbicides, but said the department was "beyond the days of [using] machetes" alone to deal with maintenance.

He added he couldn't see how to maintain Lake Leatherwood or Black Bass Dam without some herbicides, but that he was open to a safer alternative.

Christmas parking

City Attorney Tim Weaver presented the council with two possible revisions of Resolution 555, as it had requested last meeting. This is the resolution regarding free parking during the holidays.

In both drafts, the city offers free parking from 1 to 6 p.m., starting Nov. 10, up from the one hour free daily parking offered in the past.

One draft would extend the holiday parking through Jan. 31. The other ends it Dec. 31.

Brammer asked how much money the city would lose by extending the parking through January, but the figures weren't immediately available.

Mayor Dani Joy did say, however, the city is currently down $11,000 in parking for the year.

Scheunemann argued the extra business brought to town in January by the free parking would offset parking fee losses through taxes.

Zeller pointed out "a lot" of shops closed in January anyway, and said she thought the free January parking excessive.

With its number changed to 556, the resolution, which council passed, approves free parking on Spring and Main Sts. from Nov. 10 through Dec. 31, seven days a week, between the hours of one and six p.m.

Closing comments

At the meetings end, Hahn read a spirited congratulations to the nation on the recent Presidential election.

Brammer likewise congratulated electors.

Scheunemann criticized the judge in a recent court decision against him and others involved in their lawsuit against the mayor, saying the judge should have used a Black's Legal Dictionary, rather than a Webster's, in defining the word "election."

He also quoted John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the subject of silence, in chastising three council members who had come to him privately in support of his oft-stated position of voting "present" instead of yes or no in council votes, but had not spoken publicly in support of him.

Zeller thanked the voters who showed their support in re-electing her to council.

"I consider it a vote of confidence," she said, "and I'll just try to do my job the next couple years."