Maumelle City Council members want more input from residents and more precise dollar figures from city staff members before moving ahead with any or all proposed capital projects from a $23.2 million wish list presented last week by a bond task force.
The task force spent five months in public meetings reviewing and ranking a list of projects that would be paid for within the city’s current property-tax millage obligation that would be extended if approved. The City Council will select which projects might be put before voters in an election.
Maumelle’s existing property-tax rate is 6.6 mills. Under that millage rate, an owner of a $100,000 house pays $132 annually. The millage provides the city with almost $2.5 million annually.
The task force’s final report to the City Council described seven projects, along with estimates of the minimum initial cost and future operating and maintenance costs.
The projects and their minimum cost estimates are: $6.3 million for an indoor aquatic center, $4.46 million for a new senior wellness center, $3 million for the first phase for a convention/events center with a $4.8 million second phase to add an arts theater, $2.6 million for renovation of City Hall, $1.05 million for additions to the Diamond Center Softball Complex and$1 million for a pedestrian underpass across Maumelle Boulevard.
Unlike the other projects that had one estimated cost, the costs for the events center and theater project were presented as a range in the task force’s report. The first-phase events center has a range of $3 million to $3.75 million, with the second-phase theater adding another $4.8 million to $6.37 million to the project.
“These are only potential projects for your consideration,” Craig Johnson, the task force chairman and a city planning commissioner, told the City Council as he outlined the proposals. “We think they’re all worthy and all have merit.”
The concept for the projects came from city staff members and from special interest groups, including supporters of the Maumelle youth swim team and softball and baseball teams, and weren’t created by the bond task force, said Alderman Caleb Norris, who was one of two council members assigned to the task force.
A few supporters of individual projects spoke before the City Council on Feb. 3 to pitch reasons why their particular project is sorely needed in the city.
“We need to move forward with some sort of a survey so the citizens of Maumelle can tell us what they want,” Alderman Jan Hogue said.
Alderman Preston Lewis also pressed for a citywide survey to gauge interest.
“I think this is just the jumping off point here,” Lewis said of the task force’s presentation. “It will take a good deal more study on our part.”
That study should include more concise engineering plans and projected annual expenses that the city would have to figure into its yearly budgets, Alderman Ken Saunders said.Cost estimates presented in the recommendations weren’t calculated by the task force but were provided by city staff members during its review of ranking the benefits of each project.
Johnson told the City Council that “at this time” the estimates presented were only ones available to the task force.
“I have no confidence in these numbers,” Saunders said to fellow aldermen.
The costliest project, for example, is the indoor aquatic center, which Johnson said initially had a projected $10 million construction cost. City staff members under Mayor Mike Watson were able to find ways to reduce the cost to $6.3 million, he said.
“I feel it’s somewhat conservative,” Johnson said of the cost.
The indoor aquatic center and renovations to City Hall also were part of a bond proposal considered by the City Council in July 2012 before being rejected. A bond election held later that year to retain Maumelle’s property tax consisted of a reduced package for a fire station, widening of Crystal Hill Road and extending Counts Massie Road, all of which were approved by Maumelle voters.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/10/2014