Transportation, Technology & Legislative Affairs - Senate
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Bills discussed (12)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
SB416
Act 493
· 4 mentions in chapter, agenda, transcript
Matched: “SB416 Irvin TO REPEAL THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE GRANT P…”
|
TO REPEAL THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE GRANT PROGRAM; AND TO REPEAL THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE … | Irvin | Notification that SB416 is now Act 493 |
|
SB411
Act 492
· 3 mentions in agenda, chapter, transcript
Matched: “…OF RAIL EMPLOYEES IN REPORTS INVOLVING RAILROAD FATALITIES. SB411 Crowell TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE HEIGHT OF VEHICLES;…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE HEIGHT OF VEHICLES; AND TO CREATE AN OFFENSE FOR … | Crowell | Notification that SB411 is now Act 492 |
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HB1536
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ant Sen. Jamie Scott REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1536 M. McElroy TO WITHHOLD STATE TRANSPORTATION FUNDING FROM A…”
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TO WITHHOLD STATE TRANSPORTATION FUNDING FROM A SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE PASSENGER RESTRAINT … | M. McElroy | Died in House at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1606
Act 922
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…DETAILING SHIPMENTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES INTO THE STATE. HB1606 Steimel TO ALLOW A LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO AUTHORIZE THE OPERAT…”
|
TO ALLOW A LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO AUTHORIZE THE OPERATION OF A UTILITY TASK VEHICLE ON … | Steimel | Notification that HB1606 is now Act 922 |
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HB1647
Act 412
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1647 S. Meeks TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DIVISION OF INFORM…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS; TO CHANGE THE NAME OF … | S. Meeks | Notification that HB1647 is now Act 412 |
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HB1654
Act 490
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…CONCERNING THE ARKANSAS SELF-FUNDED CYBER RESPONSE PROGRAM. HB1654 Tosh TO AUTHORIZE THE ISSUANCE OF A SPECIAL LICENSE PLATE F…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE THE ISSUANCE OF A SPECIAL LICENSE PLATE FOR THE MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF THE … | Tosh | Notification that HB1654 is now Act 490 |
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HB1666
Act 656
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1666 S. Meeks TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ARKANSAS SELF-FUND…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ARKANSAS SELF-FUNDED CYBER RESPONSE PROGRAM. | S. Meeks | Notification that HB1666 is now Act 656 |
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SB258
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB258 C. Penzo TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS DIGITAL RESPONSIBILITY, SAF…”
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TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS DIGITAL RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, AND TRUST ACT. | C. Penzo | Died on Senate Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
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SB330
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…RESTRAINT SYSTEMS IN SCHOOL BUSES UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. SB330 J. Scott TO AMEND THE CONTENTS OF THE WRITTEN DRIVER'S LICE…”
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TO AMEND THE CONTENTS OF THE WRITTEN DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST AND THE DRIVER'S INSTRUCTION MANUAL; … | J. Scott | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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SB447
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ID-SOUTH COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION SPECIAL LICENSE PLATE. SB447 J. Petty TO REQUIRE PERMITTED COMMON CARRIERS TO SUBMIT REP…”
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TO REQUIRE PERMITTED COMMON CARRIERS TO SUBMIT REPORTS DETAILING SHIPMENTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES INTO THE … | J. Petty | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB96
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “AGENDA (Revised 03/14/25 @ 11:20 AM) Moved SB96 to Regular Agenda Senate Committee on Transportation, Techn…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DETACHMENT BY A REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY; AND TO REPEAL REGIONAL … | C. Penzo | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB397
Act 931
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB397 D. Wallace TO PROTECT CONFIDENTIAL PERSONAL INFORMATION OF…”
|
TO PROTECT CONFIDENTIAL PERSONAL INFORMATION OF RAIL EMPLOYEES IN REPORTS INVOLVING RAILROAD FATALITIES. | D. Wallace | Notification that SB397 is now Act 931 |
Machine transcript
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- October 2, 2026
Representative Mark D. McElroy
Unverified
0:09
If uh if they don't comply with the bill, then we'll withhold only 25% of their uh state, uh. Transportation money. And if, if you, if you want me to go over the complete bill again, I will. No, sir, I don't think we need to. Does anyone need
Speaker 2
0:24
to go back through the bill for us. Have a we have anyone here to speak for or against the bill.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
0:42
Seeing no one, we have a motion by Senator Love. We have a
second? Second by Senator Johnson, Any discussion?
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
0:57
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative McIlroy, I appreciate
your diligence on this. I, I would, I think your amendment was probably Prudent But I like the bill originally. I don't like people thumbing
their nose at the law, and I think that was the response that you had to this, and I'm grateful that you, you did what you did. I'm glad
you've reached a little middle ground and we can get this thing passed, so it'll be my pleasure to vote for it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Speaker 13
1:25
Any other discussion? Saying none. We have a motion in a
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:32
second. All those in favor say aye, oppose same sign. We'll pass, sir. Thank you so much, Mr. Commit. Thank you.
Speaker 18
1:45
She's not gonna run that one. Which one is that? Hm OK. Uh. Yes
Speaker 22
2:22
They're all, you'll have to just pass them to everybody
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
2:25
so they can look at them. San Crow if you introduce yourself for the record and what bill number do you have? Senator Kroll, District 3, Senate Bill 411 was originally brought to me from constituent. You'll get some pictures passed around to you, uh, an accident that happened in front of her house. This is a squat bill. It's called referred to the nickname is the South Carolina squat. There's been 11 states that have passed a law, um. Referring to these, the dangers
are they can't see over the hood, number one, unfortunately, in the last doing some research in the last year, there's been 3 people killed and 2 of the 3 police statements the driver stated. I could not see the person, and they ran over top of them. Uh, this incident right here, they're both South Carolina squats and the one turned in front of the other, and then you have the headlight issues. I went consulted the state police and the sheriff's association state police helped me write this bill. Uh, they are 100%
behind the language and so is the sheriff's association. So this you simply gives them fines if they're going to modify their vehicle, and then in the 3rd time they do lose their their license for a year. Any questions? I'll attempt to answer Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
3:39
Crow, I realized that BLR has a rule that they don't talk to. They don't tell me that you're working
on one, they don't tell you that I'm working on one, but I'm working on one and I
actually is this you said you had several choices of a state that had a and you picked South
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
4:01
Carolina? Well, it's, it's referred to as the South Carolina
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
4:04
squat because that's the first thing that outlawed it. I had about 5 or 6 and I thought the South Carolina legislation looked the best on that. I don't see any difference in your bill and what I just asked them to. craft for me, I will add this if I could, uh. Oh Our volunteer fire department in
West Pulaski County had an emergency vehicle that was crashed. By a squatted truck who couldn't see him in front of her, of the driver and ironically one of the, the assistant chief of our department out there. It's the largest volunteer fire department in the state is the husband of one of our Senate staffers. So this is, he sent me pictures similar to the ones you've got. So it evidently is an epidemic, and so
I'm, I'm glad to see you, uh, bring this bill. and it saves me one more thing to put on my inventory, and I agree this should be done
and would you agree? Yes sir. All right, thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any other questions, Senator
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
5:14
Bryant? chair, I just question is probably just uh maybe too far in the weeds, but I, I remember modifying. One of my vehicles with a special aid bumper and I specifically had them raise it.
Like I didn't unlevel the truck, but I specifically had them raise it. Um, not, not to impede the headlights, but to basically gain clearance so I can put a winch underneath it. Is this, is this more about the leveling of the truck that we're asking state police to the end of the truck. Yes sir. And
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
5:46
so differentiation of the front and the rear bumper. If you modify that what our conversation was is they'd go the wheel well. It would be the same measurement. As far as the front and the back.
the wheel well in the back of the wheel well.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
6:02
4 inches so I normally, normally within the tolerance and then I physically had that race to be able to put a bumper, but the bottom of the bumper is. 5 inches. Would that be a violation even though the level of the truck is the same. My understanding from talking to the state police is it
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
6:17
would not because then they'd refer to the wheel wells. OK. All right, thank you. Peter Bryant, if you look at that picture, I really
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
6:26
don't think you're gonna put a winch on front of that.
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
6:36
Any other questions? And if anybody looked at that picture, there was a little bit of a pun there because I do have crispy Kreme doughnuts in the back of that vehicle.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
6:48
Is there any money anyone here to speak for or against the
bill. Seeing no one was will of committee. Motion to pass Senator Stone, seconded by Senator Johnson. In discussion Seeing none. All those in favor say aye.
Unknown speaker
7:08
Oh the same sign. your bill passed. Thank you. 164 San Bryant. Bill 1647.
Speaker 47
7:43
Please introduce yourself for the record. Thank
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
7:47
you, Mr. Chair. Joshua Bryant, district Senate District 32. Thank you committee. This is an agency bill. Uh, proposes to change the name from division of Information Systems. Where typically most of our agencies think this is just a big repository of information on its standalone thing. It's actually within the Department of Transformation Shared Services got moved there in 2019.
And this is just a request by them to change the name. the Office of State Technology. Still be housed underneath there, so the majority, if not all, the bill is just reflecting the change of name throughout the different sections of code. The fiscal impact is nothing they're going to go ahead and exhaust all existing printed materials prior to Putting more stock back in with the with the new name change. The department is here to answer questions with that, I'll open it up for that.
Can, can you answer why they want to change the name? I will bring them up there if they want, if you need that answer on why. I imagine it's just they used to be the Department of Information, then they moved from division because we created departments and people just think this is the one stop shop when it's actually housed underneath one branch and just governs different data. Are you sure? 95% sure, but let's go out and get him up here if you want them up here. We're good.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
9:18
Any questions from the committee? Just a quick question, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Uh, Senator Bryant, the name change, there is some jurisdictional, I
things that were When we talk about AI and we talk about other things that they didn't actually have
when the Department of Information Systems was created. I think it used to be the Department of Computer Services before that.
And uh it was information system my my daughter actually, my younger daughter actually worked for him at one time, so but I know they've gone through several names, but There is no other than
the nomenclature, there's and maybe some clarification of authority. There's no change, no change.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
10:08
In fact, maybe to address Senator Hill's question, changing the name from office to the name of office of state technology reflects a shift in service as a statewide resource like the Office of Personnel Management or the Office of State Procurement.
Um, over the years because information is in the name has been mistaken as being the holder of all state information. It's just simply a division underneath the transformation services, OK. Thank you, sir.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
10:34
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any other questions? Is there anyone here to
speak for or against the bill? Seeing no one what's the will of the committee. I will close, Mr. Chair, and move it for a due pass. We got a motion 2 Senator Johnson. Any discussion
All those in favor say aye, oppose the same sign. Enter your bill
Speaker 64
11:13
passed. Senator Irvin. And 416. That must be. SB 416.
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
11:34
Good afternoon. Thank you, Senator Missy Irvin, District 24, um, members Senate Bill 416 again is with the Department of Energy and Environment, what the bill does is discontinue. It's a discontinuation of the EV infrastructure program and fund. This bill statutorily discontinues energy and environments EV infrastructure program, the EV electric vehicle infrastructure program and fund were created.
in anticipation of energy and environment's receipt of federal grant funds to build out electric vehicle infrastructure across the state. Federal funds will ultimately distributed to the Arkansas Department of Transportation, not energy and environment. Though the program, uh, so the program fund and appropriation were set, energy and environment never received or expended funds from this program. So repealing This section of the code only
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
12:37
impacts this unused energy and environment program. Thank
you. Any questions for the center? Mhm Senator Johnson,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
12:49
thank you, Senator Irvin, uh, this doesn't affect the R dot program. No, this is only
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
12:54
the energy and environment, I guess that the feds decided that
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
12:58
they wanted it to go to the transportation departments of the various states, so we're just complying with their wishes. Yeah, we're just
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
13:08
eliminating this over here in the Department of Energy and Environment because it's unnecessary because the lost of money to, yeah, the federal funds aren't coming that. The direction, but Yeah, could potentially through the Department of Transportation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. OK. Any, any other questions? Saying
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
13:26
no other questions. Is there anyone here to speak against the bill? Seeing no one, we have a motion by Senator Johnson.
We have a 2nd. Second, my stone. do pass. All those in favor say aye. Oh same sign, Bill Passenger. Thank you. Is anyone
Speaker 78
13:55
else here to present a bill besides Senator Pennzo.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
14:09
Senator Penzo, it's you. He did promise me that this would not last as long as his last bill did on the. OK OK.
Speaker 47
14:54
Please introduce yourself for the record. Clint Penzo District 31 Springdale. Chris Holland,
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
15:06
Mayor Heel. Jay Williams, city attorney for HL. It
Speaker 47
15:12
depends on your. Brita, present your bill Mayor Holland started out. Uh. Thank you guys
Speaker 90
15:19
for, for allowing us to come here and speak today.
We appreciate it. Um. So 2 years ago, this the XA and HL was down here and I'm sure most of you guys are aware of that bill that got passed. Um, the There was we spoke on the language in that bill, then there is a part of that bill that was that was escrow and sales tax. And from the from the transcripts. From that meeting, it states in
here that the airport says that uh nobody's gonna take Hoel's money. This is going to be an 8 to 14 year process. It's going to be a a soft landing for Highville, meaning that we would be able to budget and, and prepare for this, which if that was the case, that would be true, um. The Airport's gonna get up and tell you that they've made us, you know, uh, a reasonable offer to pay off our bonds, which they did make an offer that will pay off our bonds, but it's not a reasonable offer because it, it does not allow us to get any loans to
Uh Doing the infrastructure upgrades. So when we're down here in 2023. Our city just started growing at that point in time, and when this bill passed, the senators then told us to go home to start working on getting businesses coming in and residential building, so that's exactly what we did. We went home and since then we've opened 7 new businesses and we've got 3 or 4 more coming, uh, and we've, we've, uh,
We've got probably a little over 1000 lots of residential lots approved at this moment right now that we're we're trying to build with the possibility of another. We've got one development that's going to be a 1,435 lot subdivision if it comes in and we got multiple moors that are 200 or 300 lot subdivisions, but one of the things that we've got to do is we've got to upgrade our water system. Our water system's gonna, it's gonna be a $20 million project and if, if we were allowed the time that was promised down here.
2 years ago, then we could go out and get the loans and we could, we could take that burden upon herself and We could budget. To have them loans paid down or whatever. To go out and get our businesses in order for us to keep on growing and grow our sales tax to get our, our, our residents, our new residents and stuff. So Uh What I'm asking is. What was promised down here?
In 2023, it would be 8 to 14 year soft landing for Highvill and we'd be nobody was taking our money. That's, that's what I like to be held up and like I said, it's, it's in the transcripts that
Speaker 93
18:10
that. That we had made up down here, uh. Super nervous, sorry. That's uh DJ, you got anything?
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
18:48
things that were. Said, I mean, you'll probably remember the the back and forth, uh, initially we, we, we killed that piece of legislation on the floor, there was discussion about them, the airport being able. For To be able to tax a lot of folks didn't like that. Then there was the the annexation part. Uh, where they could take land from the surrounding areas will
the comments were made about that being removed. I went down to the well, said they adjusted a different section. They did address the taxation part, but the ability for the airport to take land was was said it was removed, but it was still in there, um, that's not what this is about, but that was one of the other things that was mentioned that wasn't upheld this this uh escrow and all. The tax revenue for a city and expecting the city to operate is
not a feasible solution. Um, they're not able to get bonds for, for city improvements because the revenues significantly impacted, um, and I just, I just think that the airport's in a bad spot. There have been offers and uh you know, back and forth, and I don't know all the details of that, but I do think that it's. The legislation, the intent of it was not for 100% of the revenue to be escrowed. I mean,
that makes no sense when the city's been relying on that revenue to. Completely bottle it up and not allow any of it to be used. And have to go all to paying off the existing bonds, so, um. There needs to be some sort of solution for between x and a and the city
of Hyville. be happy to answer any questions that y'all might have.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
20:48
Sir OK, so let let's let's start with this. All the what what was the impact of the bill that we passed last session. Well, I mean, what, what exactly did it do? For you, I mean, we, we kind of heard everything that it was supposed to do what the intent, but what actually, what actually happened as a result of us passing that legislation.
Speaker 103
21:18
Mr. Chairman Jay Williams, may I respond?
Speaker 106
21:22
Yes sir. So the uh the the bill that was passed in the last session. Authorized the detachment. Of the airport from the city of Haifa. In addition, uh, that bill uh has language that Would require the city to quote, use or escrow all pledged.
Taxes and revenues related to the debt that secures the city's outstanding. Water and sewer bonds. So, so what secures that debt is Primarily sales tax revenue. So the, the, the airports, the airport has since filed a petition for detachment in the airport's position is that the city is required to escrow all of its sales tax proceeds, not only from revenue generated by
the airport, but revenue from our restaurants, our brewery, our dollar store, our convenience store, 100% of the city's sales tax. Revenue under the airport's interpretation of this law has to be escrowed. Now out of those escrow funds, the, the monthly, the city's monthly bond payment is made. But under the terms of the bond. The rest of the money is what the city has always lived on as
most cities do. They our police, pay our fire, pay our city personnel, but now the position is, well, you have to, you have to escrow all those monies, and you can't use any of them except to make your bond payments or accept as if if the city and the airport reached some separate agreement, then pursuant to the terms of that agreement, the the the airport position is you could use some of those additional sales tax monies, but
otherwise the airport wants 100% of the sales tax money to be escrowed and used only to effectively prepay these bonds. Um, the, the expectation is that might take perhaps 5 years, and in the meanwhile, if all those monies go. Pay the bonds for 5 years, the city has no sales tax revenue to to survive on. OK, all right, so, so let me, let me
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
23:50
ask you this, so in in
effect, that was in the legislation. Yeah I'm, I'm, I guess what
I'm trying to get at is. Is it interpretation or is that
Speaker 106
24:10
actually written out in the legislation. The legislation states As permitted by the documents relating to the debt obligations. The municipality shall use or escrow all pledged. Taxes and revenues.
To pay off or prepay. The debt obligations. And shall not use. The pledged taxes and revenues for any other purpose, and that's uh Arkansas code annotated 14. 362-306 C2B. I don't, I don't know if that was our
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
24:57
legislation. I I I don't, I don't believe it was the intent, um, of the legislation, but that
is how it is interpreted, at least, at least at the time I don't think anybody realized. What the impact was. I, I, I, uh, You know, I, I'd talked to the the bill sponsor about that, and I was like, I don't, I don't think this is what you intended, uh, when this bill was ran, um, I think there's uh probably folks at uh X and A that didn't intend on that, but that is the
interpretation, if I'm not mistaken, there probably was a
judge that Or has there been any kind of judicial interpretation of that or, or no? There there has been litigation and that
Speaker 108
25:42
has been part of the litigation, but I don't know that that. Uh narrow question has been absolutely answered by uh the uh
Speaker 116
25:50
the the uh district court or the circuit court. So now it's just
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
25:59
an interpretation of X and A, and that's
Speaker 108
26:02
their position. Is that accurate and A's
Speaker 106
26:08
position. What is your position? Our position is that that uh right now the. city is being threatened with. Litigation and a restraining order to prohibit the city from using any of those sales tax revenue over and above the bond payment. That's what's happening right
now with further threats of of other action including possible criminal action against the mayor and or the city council for allowing those monies to
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
26:41
be spent. And if I'm a elaborate to the intent of the previous legislation, uh, testimony would discuss uh a soft landing of a much longer period than X and A's wanting them to pay off. The bonds at this point. It's more of an accelerated rate. And it is my understanding. Did the city vote on the bond?
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
27:03
Part of the the bond that was issued, did the city vote on
Speaker 106
27:10
that? Yes, the bonds, yeah, the, the bonds were issued back the most recent pledged bonds were issued in 2018, and I think that was part of an election and a there was a related sales tax. OK, that's not fixing
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
27:21
to ask you what was the payback method on that and what was the sales tax? On that. Sorry, 1% 1%.
Because to me it's what the voters decided is what weighs this. And
Speaker 90
27:42
if you don't mind me also adding in there like when we went back home after 2023, we went and met with our bond council, other loan people and none of them, no, nobody will loan us a dollar. I mean, we actually got told by a blond guy said, I won't even loan you money for a pencil because of the the escrow language in this bill. OK.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
28:13
tell. Center right, yeah, I just want to try to recap this, so if you've
got half of it, half of the high is City Hall and half is airport proper. Do we know how much is, would you, was your bond payment like on a monthly basis.
A roughly 56 56,000, somewhere around there. Do we know what what's what revenue is generated at the airport versus what generated at the city level. We have tried
Speaker 90
28:46
to figure that out because that would actually help us, you know, make a better decision on some of these negotiations, but when we got a hold of our, our representative Kenan Underwood, after we left here in 2023, he helped us to try to get hold of DFNA to get them to tell us what that difference was. Like we weren't asking how much money was coming from the rental cars or anything or any personal
business. We just want to know an overall we, we sent them the list of all the businesses at the airport and so we don't need to know how much each individual's paying, just an overall, how much is being paid monthly and, and they, they
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
29:23
would not tell us that. But you can gather that from
Speaker 90
29:27
that from the city's businesses. Now it's uh we we can't even get that information. You know, they, the airport has gave us their numbers of what they uh can best guess is the
sales tax off of the uh Off of the airport and the numbers that I got from him was for the year 2024. So our sales tax in 2024 is roughly $2,065,000 somewhere in there. And they're saying that their sales tax that the businesses are paying from the airport is either 1.75 million to 1.85 million. So if you, if you take that, we're looking at 227,000 somewhere roughly in there of what the city is, is generating,
but if you go back to COVID, and you see the 3 months that the airport did not have no passengers and you take them numbers off our sales tax, we're, we're at the same number and since then we have opened. I said, a dollar store, a brewery, a Mexican restaurant, uh, and then we've got a lot more residents, so you got the point delivery tax on everybody ordering stuff from Amazon and stuff. So unless we know that number, we can't, I mean, I can't just give you a
Speaker 132
30:38
good answer of of what you're asking there, and that's, that's our
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
30:42
problem. And it's also compounded as the city grows and people want to move their water systems have to be updated. to keep businesses coming in to, you know, allow for residential improvements and they're kind of hamstrung right now with the current. Way, you know, with all the money being escrowed, they can't. They can't do any municipal improvements. Any other questions?
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
31:14
Central and this is just just just a little. In general, about a little history. So how
did the airport Come to Hale. How, how, how did it So I
Speaker 90
31:28
was, I was a teenager when it all happened in the early 90s and from the city records we've looked at best that I can remember and then talking to the a lot of people that live there that actually opposed, you know, the airport coming out there, uh.
So there were 3 spots that they were going to choose from and originally the spot that they chose was at the time it was called the Centerton. Back then, the master broke up, you know, when it was a fire district is what it was, so that was the centerton district and then the Haio district was back to the west and then you got the Kay Springs District that was back to the east, south, you know, there, and then when they picked that Centerton district spot, uh, a lot of the farmers at that at that location, come
and sign the petition to self-annex into the city. Because if they're gonna sell to the airport, then they wanted it to be part of a HFL. Uh, so that's what, so over 3 quarters of the airport was self-annexed in. Now there was a couple elections after that, '97, I think, and maybe 96. Uh, there was a couple elections after that that took in some other pieces of the airport that was more on your east side and in your northeast quadrant up there, uh, but that's, that's
how the whole, you know, that's the history there as far as it and then, you know, in 1999, uh, the same issue got brought up again and come down here and uh I think the senator then worked out a deal with H and X and A. And said basically that uh because that's nice stance then was they didn't want to follow our regulations, so they basically the bill then said that XA didn't have to follow any of our regulations, and HIFA would get the sales tax off of it.
You know, and that's how it stood all the way up until 2 years ago. Hm OK. All right, thank you.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
33:29
Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing done, do we have anyone here from X and A? We'd like y'all next.
If you would please introduce yourself for the record and your
Speaker 145
34:08
titles. Um Mike, what? What was your last name? I'm, I'm sorry. I was actually asking about the mic, yes, my name is Aaron Burks. I'm
Speaker 147
34:17
the CEO of XNA. Andrew Branch, COOXA. Brian Burke, general counsel. For and A. So
Speaker 154
34:37
Andrew Branch. Andrew Branch. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We appreciate the opportunity to come and speak against this bill. You got a little bit of the history there, um, this, this what this bill does that's before you would actually strike out everything that was passed in Act 769 in the last legislative session which again most of you probably do remember
that conversation. It was a very extensive presentation and debate, lots of discussion, and the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed. this legislation. What it does is it creates a methodical path to detach for an airport authority from municipal boundaries and in this case obviously exonate to detach from HIFIL. Um We won't go back and relitigate all of the ins and outs and the
reason for HLs or for XNA's desire to detach, but you know, over the history this has been a one-way street where, you know, Heel has taxed the airport and its customers and has given nothing in return. It's not a traditional relationship with the city. Normally a city provides a lot of services along with being a part of the boundaries. That's never been the case here. It was never the tension of the five cities and 2 counties that make up the airport authority. And just for review, those are Springdale, Fayetteville,
Benville Rogers, and Solem Springs and then Washington and Benton Counties. And so it was their intention when this Centerton site was selected back in 1992 that it would be outside of the municipal boundaries and you know, and so again you heard a little bit. It came later after 92, after the site was selected, that that HL came in and literally crossed miles from their original very small boundary limits to go out and obviously it was a money grab,
and that's, I understand why they why they would have done that. It's paid off. They've gotten millions and millions of dollars from the airport for the last 20 something years. The only service that we get from uh from HFL is water and we, we actually originally had Bentonville providing water service for us, and we've had to switch back to Bentonville when Hyfa water has failed, so, um, so here we are today, we've we're well into the detachment process. We're actually in the final stages of that and
HFL has um Has obstructed the process of our detachment all along the way. They filed suit against us about 18 months ago. They've spent somewhere around $50 million on attorneys' fees suing us. They've taken it all the way to the Supreme Court. They've lost every step of the way, and now I think this is their kind of Hail Mary to try to, um, bail themselves out for misappropriating a significant amount of money, probably around $800,000 by our estimate.
And not following the law as it as it is. We have a, we have had for 4 months a very generous offer out to um too highful to basically take $746,500 that they can use for any purpose. And this could be for their operations, any lawful city purpose, and that number didn't come out of thin air. That was actually the high water mark from 2017 to 2021. It was the
2019 numbers. The total sales tax collections. It also happens to be an amount that is greater than the average of the 6 years' worth of sales tax collections from 2017 to 2022, which was the six years preceding passage of Act 769. So if, you know, There's been a lot of, you know, a lot of hysteria, I guess, you know, basically claiming that the city's going to be bankrupt and that sort of thing, and that's really irresponsible. That's more of a commentary, I think, on
On mismanagement of the city if that's the case, because they should certainly be able to function on the average of the 6 years sales tax revenue that they received prior to passage of this bill. It's still our intention to try to work with the city. It is not our goal. The statute is very clear that they are required to escrow that money. It's not ambiguous. The judge has found that to be the case also, not that the language is unclear. And in fact that's been the city's position.
Um, for the last 18 months in the litigation they were seeking a preliminary injunction on the basis that the mere act of filing a petition to detach would lock up all that money and so they were going to be irreparably harmed. Well, the judge found that there are plenty of other revenue sources other than sales tax revenue, and there was not irreparable harm. And that they would be unlikely to succeed on the merits. They took this all the way to the Supreme Court, like I said, and the airporters wanted every step of the way, so I'm sure I'm forgetting some
Speaker 158
39:43
important points here, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Just to, just,
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
39:48
just to clarify this, so they're not receiving any sales tax. I don't know any city in the state that can operate off not receiving some sales tax and and I think the the way that that's
Speaker 160
39:57
how y'all were interpreting this yourselves? Yes, yes, that's that's been clear from the beginning that
Speaker 162
40:01
that was the interpretation, but the thing is, so you want that city to fail then? No, no, we don't want to y'all want them to fail or they want y'all to fail one of the two instead of working together
Speaker 160
40:14
to make this thing work. So, so that's the
Speaker 165
40:16
default provision in the bill. That's why we made the offer, so currently with no deal with the detachmentists were to go through, they would receive no sales tax, so we offered what we thought was reasonable of the 2019, uh, you know, again, the, the total amount they would receive on top of the water revenues that satisfy the water bonds, which is the, the primary when did y'all get in charge of sales tax and
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
40:36
deciding who gets what. It was literally in the statute that we would
Speaker 165
40:40
come to an arrangement and a deal. I think the idea and the thought behind
it was that that would get them to finally come to the
Speaker 169
40:47
table and negotiate. creating good faith, which has not been
Speaker 171
40:51
the case in the past. So, Senator, if I, if I might, yeah, I'd like to hear
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
40:58
a little more on this because I. Go ahead. So I think but I hear what uh Chairman Hill was saying, but I guess this is my, this is my question. So when you all Well, I guess you all did help pin the last piece of
legislation that we passed. So was it your intent to escrow 100% of the
sales tax? Was that your intent? Because I think that's going to speak to, was that your intent to escrow 100% of the
Speaker 177
41:29
sales tax. Our intent was to have a level playing field so that we could have
Speaker 178
41:33
a conversation with Heiel about how to equitably divide sales tax revenue, discuss matters related to detachment such as that. And the reason the language is in there the way it is is to protect the city's
bondholders when those bonds are secured by sales tax revenue. That's, that's for the protection of the bondholders that those bonds were not unconstitutionally impaired. OK, so, but
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
41:54
so it was your intent to lock up 100% of the sales tax. Our goal is to have a, no, no, no,
no, I want you to answer it. Was it because you're talking about curing stick. So was it your
intent to lock up 100% so that you all can force that conversation. Is that, is that what you're saying?
Speaker 158
42:17
So the statute has a whole process to go through and a big part of the process is mediation, the identification of what's the term that they use aren't answering this question. I would like to hear
Speaker 183
42:28
the answer to this question. OK, so if
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
42:31
it's not, if it wasn't your intent, because see, then I guess that helps. So if it wasn't your intent. What, what was your intent on this on, on this, just this piece of language. I think that's where, I think that's where we're we're all kind of because.
I can remember this piece of legislation because pity is my seatmate Petty ran and at no time did anyone have a discussion about locking up 100% of the sales tax revenue. And I don't think I. I mean, 34 to 35 senators that are here are still, are still in the in the trunk, so. I think we were talking about the detachment and everything, but we failed to see this this piece of vital.
This vital piece of this bill to say, you know, do we want to lock up 100% of the sales tax revenue, I think. I think that is a sticking point. Nobody. Everybody fail to mention to us and we should probably should have read it more carefully. So my question is this. If it wasn't your intent to lock up 100% of the sales tax revenue. What was your intent on putting this in the bill? So I think
Speaker 158
43:50
that was something that bond council, who drafted
Speaker 154
43:54
the bill, put in there for the protection of the bondholders. That's the default position, so we have the ability then to come together in an agreement and again protecting the bondholders they've got to be protected even though the primary source of revenue for those bonds for the repayment of those bonds is the water and sewer revenues, the system revenues. But now the, the intention all along and it's envisioned in the in the statue, there's a lot of language about the process that that we go through to identify these circumstances to make sure
that everybody is, is, is, is treated fairly. The process was for it to be a An agreement between the city and the airport in order to make that transition as smooth as possible, which is why from, from the very beginning we have been We reached out um a number of times to the city to try to come to an agreement, something that they can that they can live with and it's just been they don't like the bill. They don't like
losing the airport and, and I understand, but uh um but what our board unanimously voted to do, and again our board, the airport is not just some big bad um corporation. The airport is, is an authority of those 5 cities in those two counties, and all of the representatives of those five cities and 2 counties said we need to be separate from this, this city. It was never the intention for us to be part of that city, but all of our board members have
taken a position all along that we don't want to hurt Heel. We want this to be a smooth transition, which is why we've got that generous offer on the table and have had for months. We've actually had similar offers coming straight out of the legis session and then obviously they filed suit
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
45:46
and and went down that path. So Mr. Burke, now tell me that the 764,000. That's a one-time payment.
Speaker 162
45:52
Oh, no, that's, that's an annual payment for them to uh
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
45:56
to to after they detach, you're just gonna give
them an annual payment of 764,000't actually give it
Speaker 190
46:03
I mean what retain. Well My oh, all right, so yes, I like that. So we, we don't actually pay in so the the DFNA
Speaker 165
46:14
would allow the agreement would allow them to utilize that portion of the sales tax that's being received until the bonds are satisfied or there's a sufficient amount in the escrow account to prepay the bonds.
And there's been a lot of talk about the term of of that, but again, when we were in this last session, everybody was estimating sales tax revenue was somewhere around $700,000. It best guess from us in the city, and that has escalated to somewhere around $2 million. So it's shorten the time frame a little bit, but the, the idea is they would receive that money till the bonds were
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
46:52
satisfied. All right, so let me, let me get this right, $2 million or is a $1.8 million.02 million dollars is that the revenue that's
generated currently. To to to high from the airport. Yes, well, so my understanding
Speaker 152
47:10
$2 million about 1.75 or so million of that came from the airport based on our calculations it's 2 million, but
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
47:18
from from the airport itself is 1.7, OK, and then
you're saying that. That of that.
Amount then $765,000 just say we would go to to high for every own annual payment. Yes, the
Speaker 196
47:39
detachment is is just to be clear that they would actually get 100% of it, but they would be have to remit $1 million just say roughly $1 million to the airport. No,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
47:49
no, we get nothing. We we get nothing.
Speaker 158
47:51
This is all about protecting the bondholders, so um I was actually contacted this weekend by
Speaker 154
47:56
one of the bondholders who had read something about, you know, the city trying to file for bankruptcy or whatever. Want to
know if they were secure. So they get 100% of the sales tax revenue, which is $2 million which is $1.7 million.01
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
48:10
point let's just work with 1.7 million. They get $1.7 million of sales tax revenue. Yes, from, from airport operations, that's airport operations and what you're saying is they can, they can keep those 765,000. That's what would they remit the $1 million to. To their bond, to their bondholders so they can pay off the bonds.
Speaker 161
48:30
There's about, there's about $7 million in
Speaker 158
48:34
outstanding debt and two bond issues. In the two bond issues are for water and sewer projects. from 20 2018 and 2021. How many bonds. 30, 40. No, I think, I think they mature maybe the
Speaker 145
48:51
last of the 2nd 1, like 2034, somewhere around there. I got another 10 years after the rough 19 years.
Speaker 149
49:00
So and so the debt service for those bonds is about 650,000. I
Speaker 165
49:05
think they said some somewhere around that, and the idea, the whole intention of this was that when this was done, so they would have received that money, the bonds will be paid off, so they will lose $650,000 and indebted, you know, debt payments a year. To offset the loss of the sales tax that goes away when the detachment and the bonds are satisfied when it's all wrapped up. Seeing that they would, it would kind of, it wouldn't put them in such a tough spot. That was the idea. And again, um, 2024 was a very
Speaker 154
49:35
unusual year, as you guys probably have read. X and A has been growing exponentially. We actually exceeded Little Rock in terms of employments for the last 5 months, so we don't know if that will continue. They've never had annual sales tax revenues like that. So again they've they've demonstrated that for the 6 years prior to the passage of Act 769, they were able to function just fine covering operations with that amount of money. less than that amount of money, and they had some lower years
like the COVID years and and things like that, but. So, so that's why we felt like that the the proposal that that is out there for them to consider is one that is is contemplated by the statute as a as a generous way to sort of slow this runoff for them to be able to um have the organic growth that they need to be able to to to grow their sales tax revenue by the time that these bonds are fully paid off, you know, I expect that they will
have a lot of other revenue. We've got a New highway coming in. There's a lot of stuff going on, and I anticipate they'll have a lot of growth going
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
50:51
forward. Center. Do you know the terms of that bond that 11 cent sales tax bond in 2018. Was that just dedicated For water infrastructure to the airport, or was it multiple? It, it
Speaker 154
51:01
was, yeah, so the airport has never received any benefits
from, from HIFIL. So it's actually it was water and sewer bonds, both of those were water and sewer bonds that were issued for stuff far away from the airport, the airport we get our sewer from from City of Bentonville. Like I said, we get our, we got our water from the city of Bentonville until we as a favor moved it
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
51:27
over there to them. So you're not, you're getting water currently from Bentonville too. Well,
Speaker 162
51:32
no, it's from, it's from the city of Haiful. So you
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
51:37
are getting a benefit then. Well, if the water bond, the bond was for water and you're getting water. You, you are receiving a benefit. We're
Speaker 154
51:47
we're paying actually I don't think so. We we are paying the market rate for that, so those the the improvements that came from the issuance of those bonds were not so are the citizens paying that
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
51:57
same rate too. They're paying market price. Yes sir, you are getting a benefit because they would not have been able to sustain y'all without the bond. We
Speaker 215
52:04
actually switched over to to I'm through with the question on that.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
52:09
Any other questions? Sentry Johnson. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Burks, uh, and I'm gonna follow up where the chairman was headed. At one point, you could buy water from Bentonville and then by choice you started buying water from H and you could go, I guess you could, you're hooked up on either end type thing. You could buy, but at the current time you're actually buying from Hill and whatever their subscriber
rate, yes, OK, that clarifies that now the other
thing, if I could, Mr. Chairman, I know a little bit about how this authority is set up. Uh, you said there's 5
cities and 2. Is that correct? Obviously it's Benton in Washington County, but it's Bentonville
Speaker 221
52:59
Roger Rogers Silent Springs, Springs Fayetteville and Spring
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
53:02
Springdale, OK, do each of those municipalities have a representative on your board, and is that like appointed by the mayor and or city council.
That's correct. OK. Have they weighed in on uh Senate Bill 96, the individual municipalities or the the people that represent them. On the board, have they
Speaker 161
53:24
weighed in? Yes, and there are 2 appointees from each of those governmental
Speaker 154
53:29
entities and yes, they voted unanimously to detach. They voted in favor of pushing the legislation back in 2023, and so, and obviously what this bill does is literally just strikes through everything from
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
53:46
ACT 769. So it's age bill I noticed and except for a couple of things, it's mostly strike
through. So we're, and I, you know, I, I read it pretty carefully two years ago and you know, and I voted for it and I just uh I mean
it sounds like They didn't get what they wanted in court, so they came to the General Assembly. Am I? I'll let them say that they don't believe that that's finding have differences of opinion, but that's what it comes to to me. That's correct. Well, uh,
Mr. Chairman, I maybe come back later. I'll come back in the queue if I think of something
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
54:29
else. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Senator Brown. I guess at the end of the day this your intent is to get your, get that bond paid off as quick as possible, so you can complete the full deannexation, or are you allowed to de-annex with that condition, or
Speaker 161
54:42
yes, under the statute we can go ahead and and and detach from the city, but the sales taxes will continue to be collected until
Speaker 145
54:50
all of the debt that was outstanding at that time is
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
54:55
paid off. So once, once that occurs, DFNA will no longer Have your businesses remit sales tax. That's correct.
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
55:02
To the state Well, I mean,
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
55:05
I'm sorry, the city, I mean via the state, yeah, yeah, their mechanism, um, and then we, we did not authorize your authority to reimplement sales tax, so you're not an authority city, um, and the courts where the,
you said that obviously it's going back and forth bouncing right now in the courts have or the mediator has weighed in and said this is reasonable.
Speaker 161
55:31
They just haven't approved it yet, so, so it Again, the litigation lasted
Speaker 154
55:36
about 18 months, um, they finally got an adverse ruling to their side, just about 3 weeks ago, so they dropped the lawsuit finally just about 3 weeks ago and so, so we, we reopened and offered um the, you know, the, the
The deal that we were talking about that we felt like was fair to everybody and so that has been on the table. And so we're just, we've been waiting for a response from them on that.
Speaker 177
56:05
Was there a counter or it was just no deal? I think there was, there was a deadline set of 5:00
Speaker 178
56:11
p.m. last Friday, uh, for them to accept that and again these numbers were not strange to them or not foreign to them. This was first presented back in November. Um. Aaron and I had had a meeting on
Tuesday, March 11th with the mayor and the city attorney to reiterate that offer, the money piece of that offer with a couple of additional things that are unrelated to that, and our, our board had a special committee meeting that afternoon and the board voted to give the city a deadline of 5:00 p.m. on March 14th to accept that offer, and they did not accept that offer. And and just to clarify, that
Speaker 145
56:47
offer was on the table for since November of last year and it's, but they just, they, they have
Speaker 154
56:56
been inappropriately taking the sales tax money and using it for operations and just essentially ignoring us. Any other questions? No.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
57:11
OK, so let me ask you this. Alright, so when, when you are, when the board
was initially. Formed the authority for the so the authority was formed with those 7 entities. I'm, I'm, I'm
assuming. That's correct, OK. All right, and so. When you You know, in this prompted this question was prompted from what Senator Johnson said, saying that he came to us to actually fix this, but. You all came
to the legislature to actually get the the the annexation or the detachment piece. Um
I guess I'm, here's my, here's my question. I guess I, I can see, I can kind
of see where and I, I think that you all could see where they are with having at least I guess $1.7 million or having 765. I mean like nobody's and and I think that was now that I I recall, I think that was the thing is that you all did not see that you all were receiving any benefits now I guess the sewer and the the are You are not, you all are not attached to their sewer. Is
that, is that correct? That's OK, but you are attached the water and so it it's. There's no security
force, no police force out for the airport, we have our own um very extensive
Speaker 161
58:43
police and fire departments, yes. OK, so has that, yes.
Speaker 154
58:53
have a, um, what, 15 police officers. We have a very large fire
department with airport rescue and firefighting capabilities, so
Speaker 232
59:01
we have, we offer basically all those services for our, our airport. Huh, OK, alright. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thinking it's good
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
59:16
doing the sewer because sewer is also the most expensive part of it. Was where where people make money. That's what the city is making money off their water. No one won't see her
and so appreciate any other questions the committee? See no, thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. I want to say one thing though. It bothers me that a city who's willing to grow in an airport to
stay with them. Can't man up and shake hands and sit down and come to an agreement. That's That's teenageish. I'm sorry, what you want to. That's immaterial on both sides that the two of y'all have to come to the legislative body. Twice now to try to solve a problem which y'all should be
able to sit down. If the judge would have done their job, they'd have made y'all sit down.
Speaker 78
1:00:16
You'd have come up with an agreement. 100% agree with you, sir. Thank you all for
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:00:19
being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. OK, we've got 4 more and they were all far. This bill and so let's start with Justin Allen
Just going around. In fact, actually, if you want to, let's all just come up at the same time. We've got Justin Allen and Alexis. Alexis Maine Adelman, Sherry
Adelman and then this one. And And whoever's left. It's one more. Yeah
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:01:11
Um Senators, thank you for the opportunity to come speak with you. My name is Justin Allen. I'm a city councilman for City of Pikeville. I'm a father of 8 kids. I'm a small business owner of the Wooden Spoon in Gentry, Arkansas at Arkansas Heritage Hall of Fame restaurant. Um, I'm also a little closer. I'm also a
Speaker 254
1:01:29
corporate businessman. I am not a politician by trade, so I'm not really skilled at what we're doing right here, but I'm going to do my best. There was a question you asked earlier, Mr. Love, Senator Love, about
timelines April 4th annexed 95-1 annexation. was when the city of Hafill annexed to the land that was to be purchased to be purchased by Ana Airport. The land purchase occurred on April 20th, 1995, 20 days later. Um, so from a timeline perspective just for history, you were asking questions. I want to give that that clarity that they were, they did knowingly
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:02:03
purchase land within the city of Highville, whether that matters or not, I don't know if it's immaterial at this point, but it was
Speaker 254
1:02:09
something that was a known fact at the
time it happened. Um, you asked a question earlier
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:02:16
also about the 70 $764,000. I don't know if it was clear or clearly stated. The payment of the taxes that the airport will allow
Speaker 254
1:02:23
us to use by the graces that they're going to give us the chance to run our city, they would be available to us until the
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:02:31
detachment occurs. Once detachment occurs, all those funds disappear from the same high fill. We no longer have them available to us. I don't
Speaker 254
1:02:37
know that that was clearly stated earlier, so I wanted to clarify that for you as well. Um,
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:02:47
So the statement was the earlier as well. I had the opportunity, by the way, you mentioned this a travesty that we can't find a way as two organizations to create an opportunity to solve this and not be in front of you. Um, there's been a lot of there's been a mediation board that's in place. The mayor goes to it. He's not allowed to tell us what happens as a city council, so we don't really get to hear about it. The first we heard of an offer from the city from X&A as a city council was this past Tuesday night. It came to us in writing, and
Speaker 254
1:03:11
that was our city council meeting our normal agenda items. And we reviewed it and it was
our first chance to respond. Our immediate response as a city was not very
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:03:21
favorable to see a situation that would cripple us. We would have to defund our police. We'd have to defund our fire department in order to get to the budget that they want us to get to to
Speaker 254
1:03:28
to continue the payments the way they want us to do that. So, uh, you know, the request of the mayor, I engaged with the city of X and A, Mr. Branch is a very frequent customer of the wooden spoon. He didn't engage with me before about trying to, we probably should start talking some things here. He felt like maybe I was a level head. I'm not a Not a Highvill native, and potentially I could come in and
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:03:49
help resolve some matters. So I met with Mr. Branch and I met with Mr. Burke on Wednesday following our city council meeting with the intent to suggest that we need more time. Time was what was required of a city council to think this through and make sure we're not making an irresponsible decision for our citizens. That's what we're what we're asked to do by our citizens when we can get deals like this in front of us. Um, so we met, we had a great conversation. It was cordial, um, so much so
Speaker 254
1:04:10
that I received an invitation the next night, that same night from Mr. Burke to be able to attend Rogers and event of the Chamber of Commerce where it seemed like 3000 people there, maybe 1000 people at the
luncheon, and I was able to sit at their table and meet 3 of their board members, which I was very pleased with the opportunity to meet with 3 board members. Martin was one of them. Art was another, and Howard was the other one that I was able to meet. Very excited to introduce myself and tell them I was here to help create a path forward for us to make a deal. Um, and that was my intent and it still is my intent. That is what I'm here to do. I want to do that with the with the XNA airport and find a way to do things, but I'm also not savvy in the legal implications of how I can meet when I can meet, how many of us can meet. It gets very confusing for a guy like me
that doesn't do this for a living, but that said, I'm not, I'm here to do that for the city. Someone asked, was there a counter, I think it was you, Senator Bryant. Um that asked about a counter in March 6th, our mayor provided this to every board member of XNA Airport, which is a counteroffer, and if you'll give me a liberty, I'd like to read pieces of it to show what we were trying to do. Uh, the current legislation would be amended to clarify that all the city sales tax will continue to be collected and distributed to the city of Hyville under their current sales tax bonds or until the current sales tax bonds are paid in accordance with the
original payment date. With a payoff date on or at April 1st of 2036. Someone asked when our bonds were to be paid off originally that. about the timeline that it should be paid off. There will be no escrow of the sales tax. Sales tax collections of the city tax byXA would end on April 1 of 2036. We have a timeline, we have a date, we can plan, we can think through things as a city and figure out how we're going to be able to keep our teeth police funded and our fire department in place. The current legislation would be amended to provide the detachment would be limited to lands acquired by X and A prior
to January 1 of 2000, and alternatively, you might remember when this was originally discussed in 2023, 1 of the original proposals that Ex had was that they were actually it was about money. They wanted the money too, and they didn't feel like it was fair that that we as the city got the money because of the 5 cities and 2 counties, etc. that created it and they wanted a piece of the pie, ultimately X3 piece X and A agrees to withdrawal or detachment petition in the city will support legislation that will authorize the Citizens' High bill to vote on a special sales tax measure for a
3% sales tax from all salesmen in the original footprint of the airport. X will remain in the city, and these special sales tax proceeds will be paid directly to XNA by DFA for the exclusive use and benefit of the airport. This is in the most responsible decision that could be made for both entities. We maintain tax revenue to run our city to plan for the growth, the $20 million we have to spend to build the rooftops that we need to be built that. that, that's if you're not in Northwest Arkansas, the growth is exponential. It's insane. We have to build the infrastructure to support that growth. The plan
that was put before us. On Tuesday as a city council will cripple us. We will go bankrupt. We cannot get lenders to lend us money to do the infrastructure to create the growth and be sustainable. We're asking for common sense, sustainable solutions, and that's what we, I believe, have proposed to XNA, which when you ask them if they got a counter, did they tell you this? No, all three of those individuals had this in their hand, and they didn't tell you they had it. Honesty is very important in every relationship.
And I would implore you to speak on behalf of the citizens of this little city is David and Goliath. We, we don't have the tools. We don't have the resources that Xan does. We are doing our best to find on behalf of our citizens to do what they said they would do, I will quote from the, if I can, if you allow me, the quote from Mr. Burke, We're not taking away anybody's money. This bill would not do anything to take away anybody's money. It sets the table. for conversations to be had
between a city and a quasi municipal entity to figure out whether they can continue to coexist or whether some other alternative is needed to such as a detachment. The effect of that if you were to play it out is nothing immediate. You've heard testimony today that Highfill's existing bond indebtedness would take anywhere between 8 to 14 years. This is what I've heard to pay off. This is what I've heard to pay off that the existing sales tax revenue is approximately equivalent to the annual debt maintenance. So if there were to be a detachment, the city of Highville first of
all would not lose anything, and secondly they would have an 8 to 14 year planning horizon to figure out whether they need to take steps to accommodate the loss of that sales tax revenue. We are one year away from it. We are not 8 to 14 years away from it. We have not had the substantial time required or needed to plan for such a drastic change in sales revenue. I implore you, Senator Johnson, Senator Bryant, Senator Stone. I ask you to please listen to the citizens of Highville. We need your help.
Senator Love, I think we have you, and so I appreciate your support and Senator Hill as well. Thank you. Thank you. Next, please introduce yourself for the
Alexis Main
Unverified
1:09:11
record. My name is Alexis Main. I'm on the city council of HIFO. So I
Speaker 258
1:09:15
know that you, you guys have heard quite a bit, so I'm not going to put it all again, but I'm going to say two things. So. Speaking on whether we misuse our funds or we are appropriately putting our funds where they belong. We, we keep
all that as public record. Very conservative in our city. We understand growth. I understand growth. I'm a businesswoman. I own a business. I understand that in order to grow a business you're going to need more police, more fire, more water, more sewer, more of everything, and while we may not like the bill, we can understand, OK, they want to detach from our city. But let's come to an agreement that makes sense for for everybody because if we put this forth like what, what are we showing the rest of the
Arkansans, the other businesses and other municipalities can do in their city. I'm bankrupt them because they want to detach over a sales tax that doesn't come from their pocket, they might not use all of our services in our city, but we've certainly offered them. It's not that we didn't offer services. They don't want to receive services, and I'll tell you as a firefighter and a police officer's wife, our fire department does go to that airport. I've watched every
surrounding city's fire truck go to that airport. We do provide services. The people who are wrecking in front of their airport or around their airport because of all the traffic is our police force and our firefighters that are there. So I'm sorry they don't want to use all of our services, but we offer them. They've been a part of our city for 15 years. We worked together for 15 years and we, we want to continue to work together, but what they're offering us doesn't allow us to work together. So that, if that
kind of thing stays out there, this is what's going to happen to other. cities and other Arkansans that are affected by this airport. We can come to an agreement if people are willing, but they haven't. We've came to them. We've asked, we've tried to negotiate, but they haven't been willing to negotiate with us. They, they say that it's, it's showing like it's our way or the highway, it's not that way. And 8 to 14, we, we've said, we've voted, we've talked, we've gone over all the financials as of our
citizens, because it's again public on our website, and we've gone over that 8 to 14 year. Let down, we can do that. We can grow, but we can't grow if we can't afford to pay our police and our fire and get water. What, what do we have? We can't get a loan. We can't have protection. Our citizens have nothing. That's what you want out of the city that's worked so closely with you for so long. I, I, I think the offer that we made
them is more than generous. Our country was founded on taxation without representation. You want to, you want to impose a 3% tax after you get rid of our tax because you don't want us to have the ability to collect your tax revenue, like there's not a city that I've ever seen, and I'm telling you, I've stayed up all night thinking about this and reading it and searching and there's not a city that I've found that can thrive with no sales tax revenue. There is none. When we offered, what we offered, and they said, oh, we
don't want to be a part of your water. We still use your water, but we don't want to be charging out of city fee. OK, so you want to be out of our city. You want to still use our water, but you don't want us to charge a fee to you to use our water and being out of our city, we need more water. We can't sustain the growth that we've planned and approved already. For our city without bonds. There's a prepayment penalty on our bonds. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but there is, and they're willing to pay that just
so we can pay off the bond and they can leave for what? We've never known what the what is because we've asked, we brought up, our mayor brought up to them the 8 to 14 years that they said that is in the transcript that they said here, and they flipped the page over and kept talking about something else. Our country was founded on honesty and integrity. And if the bill stays the way it was, Then those people need to be honest with integrity and negotiate with our city because the rest of Arkansas is paying attention.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:13:38
So I got Thank you. Do you have any questions for the, for
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:13:52
the first two? The committee Mm. Do it Thank you, Mr. Chair testimony, I guess the others are city council members as well, but who I just this is just to the city and any of you can answer. What is the population of Haville? The last census took us to about
Speaker 251
1:14:09
1500, but we have over 2, we talked about earlier, we have 2000 roofs and we think we're at about 3, 3200
Speaker 269
1:14:16
and we did the math a little earlier for some different but
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:14:20
it was about 3250. OK, uh, and, and yours a paid or volunteer fire department volunteer. volunteer, OK. Alright. And how many police officers? We have
Speaker 258
1:14:30
7 full-time police officers and 7 part-time, and our most recent city council meeting. Our fire chief let us know that we have seen an
increase in crime, and they will be looking to add another full-time police officer. We have the, we also have the, the children's shelter in our city, um, where we protect our youth. We, we have one dedicated officer to that facility. That is through our city, OK, and And you can just
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:14:57
give me an estimate on this. What is your, your property tax revenue to the city. I don't have that
Speaker 271
1:15:05
off the top of my head, sir. I'm sorry.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:15:11
A little over 300,000 spoke by the mayor. OK, all right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Pa. That love. Thank you. So, so do you all oppose the,
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:15:30
the, the detachment? Um That would be our that would be my preference because I believe once an entity purchases a property, and I own a business. I'm, you know, one of the arguments I've heard is that it's a wooden spoon I mentioned my lemon gentry. 90% of my
customers are not from Gentry, Arkansas. It's a 5000 plus maybe 8000 plus town. They come from Bentonville and everywhere else around. The argument is that the customers of the airport don't come from the airport. They come from not from Highville. They come from other places. And, you know, from my perspective, if I am in that city and I do take, I do partake of the services while only water and optionally don't choose to take our police department and choose not to take our fire department, and there are some nuances that I'm not skilled
enough to understand about the fire requirements for an airport versus what we what we currently provide, so there would be things they would probably have to add on to versus what we can provide. That said, the city has never denied the services to X and A. They chose to get their own police department for whatever reason they chose to Us dollars in their budget. That's their choice. We're not here to, we don't tell them what to do with their money, but
Speaker 254
1:16:32
they want to tell us what to do with our money, um, if you back to director to answer your question, we would prefer it. I've come to the point that the legislation passed, it is what
it is, and our job at this point is to move past it. You all made the decision to let the airport, or not maybe individually, but as a collective body you all decide to allow the airport to detach. That's not my argument today. I don't believe I'm here to argue that. I'm here to try and find what's best for the I feel citizens in the long term and the future. If you ask me if that's what I want, absolutely. I think everyone should be held to the same standard. You buy land in
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:17:02
a city, you've got to stay in the city. You can't just choose to opt out. When does Northwest Arkansas Community College decide doesn't want to be part of Rogers, and he gets to move on out of here. I mean, how, where's the slippery slope end? When does a Walmart, not to get sign, doesn't want to be in the
city because most of its customers come from some other place besides that city. How do we stop the slippery slope we're starting here back to what's good for Arkansans, not to allow the slope to start. We shouldn't be in a place where we can give people the option to just buy land in the city and to They don't be part of it just because that wasn't the original intent. I understand the logic. They're smart people. I don't disagree with Mr. Burke and all the thoughts of what they originally intended, but what actually did happen was land was purchased that was in the city at the time they purchased it. That was a decision they made. Any business deal I've ever
operated in, I have a chance to walk away at the last minute if I don't like what's going on. They didn't
Speaker 254
1:17:50
walk away. I feel like they made the choice. They should have to live with the choice, good or bad, just like any other business that exist, um, but that said, if they are choosing to detach, we are here, open arms, ready to have a conversation
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:18:01
and make a make a deal that's best for both entities, not one-sided deal that's in place that they offered us. And I would add, I live on the northern side of the
Speaker 273
1:18:09
city. I don't have to hold it. Please introduce yourself for the record, or are there any more
Alexis Main
Unverified
1:18:15
questions for the first two? I Um, I was just going to say, so in the terms of my my
Speaker 258
1:18:29
city, Do I want them to de-annex? No. We've been partnered together forever. Haifa was founded on transportation. We had the railroad running through our city we first began, so it's part of our identity. We, we're proud of them. We're happy for them. We love to stay together.
Um, but as far as other This is affecting other Arkansans, and that's, that's my main worry, you know, if we, like you said, if we start a slippery slope, that's what that's what's going to happen. We, it passed and then we did what we said we would do, and they didn't. They didn't come with an agreement that that, you know, in their terms, they say that we can live with, we can't live with that. These are people's lives and homes that have been here before the airport ever started. So
In the terms of my city, do we want them to annex? No, in the state of Arkansas, I think it's the best interest of our Kansans for this to be open for any municipality to do? No. Take any other questions for the first two? No, OK. Thank you
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:19:35
all if you don't mind, that way we can. Or share a microphone, we're gonna get the other two. You say they're just kind of pass the mics around. You would please introduce
Speaker 277
1:19:48
yourself to the record and and proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Shai Adelman, council member of
Speaker 278
1:19:55
War 3 position 1. He said, I live on the northern side of the city. I actually get to see the landing gear from the airplanes when they go to land because that's how close we are to the airport where we are in the airport, right? The airport is within Hao. You're asking if Get mood lighting. You're asking if we want the airport to de-annex. Absolutely not, but if the
annexation, the annexation is something we have to live with. We're asking you to hold X and A to the standards and to what they promised when they proposed the bill, which you've heard us say several times there's an 8 to 14 year runway allowing for soft landing that is their words, not ours. For Highfill, they're now trying to force, they're trying to bully us into what works for them and truly only for them, not even for their patrons. What they're doing is Quite frankly, right outright
intentionally trying to bankrupt our city. The deal they're proposing will prevent us from securing funding from lenders. You've heard that. Which will result in defending our police. We'll have to defund our fire department. We won't be able to secure and properly be staffed at the children's shelter. And we're not going to be able to serve X and a patrons and others in our citizens. They choose not to use our services like council member Alexa said, but those services
are there. Highway 12, that is a state highway, and it goes from Haifa to the airport. It's patrolled by our police. I had a deer there in November. Chief Blake from Haifa Police Department came to file the report. So our service, not XNA, our services are being, are servicing X and A. And we would do it for any citizen, any user, anybody coming through those, those roads, right? Go to XNA. Oh
It seems to me that what they want to do is they want to destroy a community that is around them, and I'm, I'm frankly struggling to understand why XNA doesn't want to see the community that's right around them flourish after 20/20 years of partnership. XMA made an offer that's quite frankly is tyrannical. It's here's what you can do with your money. Here's what you can't do with your money. And
Speaker 281
1:22:16
it's dictating everything, all, all sales revenue, right, not just what comes from there, from them. And
Speaker 278
1:22:24
And it's, it's telling us what we can and can't do with that money. Again, is that a precedent that we want to set for the state of Arkansas. That an entity can choose to de annex and four cities to escrow their tax monies and dictate what they can do with it. That's not the future that we want for this state. It's not the future that we want for HL or Northwest Arkansas. The bill that they passed essentially gives them full control that they call it the default position, but it essentially gives them full control over it over it.
All we're asking is for you to consider to tellex and to do what they said they will do, which is 8 to 14 year runway allow us to build the infrastructure, allow us to build the businesses, allow us to build a future for Hyfill that can make our citizens proud, our citizens proud can make a beautiful community around the airport and can can be something that everybody can be proud of senators.
Dustin Carl
Unverified
1:23:26
Thank you. Any questions for him? Saying none. Please introduce yourself for the record. Hey, good evening, guys. Thank you for your time. Uh, my name is Dustin Carl. I'm the public works director for the city of Highville. I've been with them for 3 years now, and I've also worked at 3 other municipalities, a small one outside of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and I worked for the city of Beville for 10 years. I just want to say that the services are needed like with without our sales tax revenue, my ultimate goal is to provide clean water to every citizen that needs it.
We have over 1,922 connections in our system right now, and all of those customers depend upon my department to do their job. Make sure that the toilet does flush and make sure that when they turn on their faucet they have clean water. That's my ultimate goal. I don't see how. Any Arkansan can live without clean water. And I don't see how any city could survive. And run day to day operations without tax revenue. That's all I have to say. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Any questions?
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:24:32
Saying none Oh Yes Turn your mic on. Thank you, and I'm back
to where you were in regards to to I guess. You all are still receiving sales tax revenue. Are, are you are not paying your bills. I mean like how, how was, how is
this working out? As I, as I stated
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:25:00
earlier, the way it's interpreted is that we
are supposed to put every sales tax dollar into an escrow account and not supposed to spend it. We have had to take it from the escrow account and spend it on our city services because otherwise we would have no police services, no fire department, etc. so we are using it. Possibly differently than we should be at the moment, but not for anything nefarious or anything illegal. We're doing it to run our city. Without it, we would not be able to run the city. Directly to answer your question. OK, so you all are spending the money, but I guess.
Objection with an objection and with with the conversation I had last week with the idea that potentially that's criminal activity and our mayor will be served with some kind of litigation lawsuit that would speak to that and potentially myself and they'll also council members would also be criminally charged for using the funds to run our city as we have done always in
Speaker 251
1:25:56
the past. It's a very uncomfortable conversation to be a father of 8 and be facing criminal charges and never had more than a
Speaker 258
1:26:04
speeding ticket in his life. We are paying our bills, um. But the idea With the annexing, right, as if we've got to make up for that revenue. So what we've done since we left here was nonstop focus on growth of our city and what we can do so that when we get to that point. We are good to go. We can make up that difference in revenue.
So we're paying our bills, but it's their position that since we left here we should be escrowing all that money. How do they expect us to grow, have revenue. If we can't Spend our money. Yeah We can do it the way they want us to, and we're bankrupt in 2 years, or we can continue to grow so that whenever they do DNX, we can, our city can
Speaker 289
1:27:00
thrive the way we designed it and the way our people want.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:27:11
Sarah Bright. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So you've got 2% sales tax in the city high pool. Is that inclusive of the 1% for the Capital improvement water bonds, so it's a total of 3 I'm, I'm unclear what the law allows. I thought it was a max of 2, so it might make sense though sales tax is 2% 2% across the board 1% is what's on the board on the table right now, and the other percent is fully dedicated.
Speaker 251
1:27:35
You're asking a question. I don't have all the specifics on,
Justin Allen
Unverified
1:27:41
can I speak for counsel. Yeah. You probably could hear the mayor, but 2% is dedicated to the bonds, 1% to each bond. 1% to each bond. So this is on one of the bonds. bonds, OK, thank you. Any other questions? OK. Well, I'm gonna, I'm probably gonna backtrack and maybe hopefully.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:28:13
If not you, maybe Senator Penza or, or maybe the mayor knows,
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:28:16
but, um, but if you don't, if you don't mind, I'd like to. Excuse them and bring
the mayor back up. And I would also like to bring, uh, the CEO backup. at the same time. Uh, and you may,
but I want each one of them to answer me first why they can't come to an agreement. Then you might.
Chris Holland, Mayor of Highville. And you heard my question just then as you were walking up here and then we'll go to Senator Brite. She is, why
Speaker 158
1:29:18
can y'all not come to an agreement? I, I don't know that I have an answer for that. We, I think that we've had some very constructive conversations, I believed, and I think we, I think we felt like we had a gentleman's agreement essentially to move forward with the terms of the that we had offered. Um, I'm not sure what happened
in the interim when we came back, you know, to ink the deal, so to speak. Maybe the mayor can speak
Speaker 90
1:29:47
to that. Oh Aaron and I had great conversations. Uh, he's been great on, on the whole negotiation, and I understand his position, you know, his board is saying they, they want to offer the the the escrow, the 700 and is it 5046 huge round figure that's close enough, so the $740,000. They want to
escrow, you know, give us, allow us to have that, and escrow the rest of it to to pay the bonds off faster. Uh, Aaron and I talked and I told him, and it was on a Thursday. I told him I'll, uh, you know, send me the send me all the deal, and I'll look at, I'll plug it into my budget over the weekend and on Tuesday we planned on having a meeting Tuesday with him, myself, uh, my city lawyer and airport lawyer, and I told him Tuesday I'll let you know where
What I find out. Uh, so Tuesday come and I said, listen, Essentially this will give us roughly we'll be $500,000 in the good. If we take this deal. But are we won't have no ability to, to do infrastructure upgrades, water specifically, um, and our, our budget is intertwined with our building fees, you know, so that if we're not able to grow if we're not able to upsize our water lines
within about 2.5 years of us not doing anything, all of our buildings are gonna stop. It's gonna come to a screeching halt, and we're going to lose all of that. So we're actually going to be in the negative. So I asked her, I said, man, Ask your board to give us 10 years. You guys said 8 to 14. I think 10 years we can make it and correct me if I'm wrong, but the board said no on that, uh, so that's like all, all we're asking for like the deannexation we opposed it to begin with. If that's gonna stay, I'm not
going to fight that. All I want is the time, that's it. I just don't want our city to fail. I don't think Aaron. I don't think
Speaker 127
1:31:48
the airport wants it. I understand where the airport's coming from, but I don't know if they're understanding where we're
Speaker 152
1:31:55
coming from. And we absolutely don't want the city
Speaker 154
1:31:57
to fail. That's, that's why we've made the offer that we have, and you know, the 8 to 14 year time frame, we're looking at roughly that time frame still so we're 2 years into this, you know, that was a discussion back in 2023. They've had full use of the money during all the
litigation and all of that stuff, the revenues have gone up pretty substantially from where I think we all expected them to be. I think their estimate and our estimate based on historicals was somewhere around that. 70000 $0 a year mark, but we've grown dramatically and so the revenue is coming in a little faster, which can speed up the time frame for paying off those bonds, um, by the statute, the sales taxes can only be collected until those bonds are
paid off, so even if you take it pretty aggressive perspective or estimate on what the sales tax revenues are going to be and let's say that they are closer to what they were in 2024. They were still looking at about another probably 5.5 years on top of the 2 years that's already passed, so that's given really that that 8 year time frame and then again there's the 800,000 that's that's Wherever it is, that could cover essentially another year of that, so that gets you to 8.5 years. So we feel like, and I think our
board feels like that that this this is a number that works. It gets us to the end goal of being fully free. Our passengers get a tax cut. We get a tax cut because we actually, we, we have a specific price for parking, for example, we pay the taxes out of what we collect, and that's a pretty substantial. That's about $14 million a year, so it's, you know, almost $300,000 that comes directly out of the airport's pocket for these taxes, so obviously we
want all that to go away as soon as possible, you know, it we would have loved to work something out a long time ago, and after the legislation passed, we were meeting trying to get to that common ground, asking for help on maintaining the road that goes through the airport. That is the busiest road that's not a state highway in the city of Hyville. And it's used by everybody. It's a cut through that connects Highway 12 and Highway 264, and all we wanted was a little help. That road is going to take about
$13.3 million to to upgrade and rebuild, and we've never gotten a dime from the city for any of that, and so again those negotiations, you know, I guess that's history now, but we like I said, we reached out multiple times, always our initiative and, and I would echo what the mayor said. I think, you know, our, our dealings have always been cordial. I think he's looking out for the, you know, citizens of his city. We're looking out for something that's really much bigger than that. It's the entire region, and it's the 5 cities and the
two counties, and you know we're we're we're competitive. We're a governmental entity, but we're competitive and we, we, we have to rely on our own revenues. We want to be the best choice for um for Arkansans. We don't want them to have to drive to Tulsa for for an airport, so we're highly focused on providing the very best value. for those customers, and that's, and that's what this is all about. And again, um, Lots of lots of reasons, you know, for why we wouldn't be
interested in in using the services that like police and things like that because we've had, we've had issues with with police maybe overstepping on on airport property in the past, and we won't rehash all that, but, but there's, there are good reasons for that as well. The center right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, I lost my
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:35:36
place in the bill. I just. I guess my, my overall question it might be to the. To the city, but This seems aggressive.
Just removing where we got to after after a lot of work and a lot of gnashing of teeth to strike it all rather than just find the provision of the language that says you, you transcript 18 8 to 14 years. It's fine to where there was a section here relating to that. Just wondering why, why that didn't. Make it into the existing language to, you know, force the courts maybe to look back retrospectively and say the intent of the General Assembly
was as transcripts provided to stretch this out for, you
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:36:30
know, maybe a less abrasive landing. said that a question more for the bill sponsor. Possibly, but let's hold that for him. Unless you
Speaker 90
1:36:42
want to answer it. Uh, to, to answer your question, I'm, uh, I apologize if, if, if striking all that offended anybody. I'm not used to how things go on down here. So, uh, and that was, you know, I, I
think, uh, Senator Penzo was just, I mean, he
Speaker 140
1:36:56
was trying to help us out in every way possible that it
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:37:04
wasn't going to harm our city. Your heads up. I didn't
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:37:08
quite catch the question over in the corner. Yeah, I wish there's a provision that talks about the basically the the impoundment or the escrow, the taxes, and then treating the taxes as As Not a tax when, when, you know, supplementing the city's
operations, I guess my question would be, instead of just Basically, and the annexing the annexation, whatever that would be is is why, why not. Just kind of forcing forced the negotiation of maybe not obviously you want to negotiate negotiations happen one side is far one way, one side's far the other like this may be too far for the airport, but the
airport's too far from the city, so scissor in the
Speaker 240
1:37:55
You're talking about the word negotiate. Negotiate. Thank you. That's what I was
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:38:01
saying earlier so I guess, I guess my answer to that question would be this, this bill was
filed early on in the session. Uh, there was negotiations that have been happening since we've been here, uh, I was really hoping that things would come together, uh, and we wouldn't be sitting at this table today, um, I, I didn't really follow clearly, uh, what's been going on back home, but uh.
Apparently negotiations had broken down, uh, I was asked to go ahead and run the bill. Uh, it's late session, things get crazy. Uh, my ultimate goal, I mean, you know, I He's a friend. He's a friend. This is an awkward spot for me to be and I've got friends on the XA board. I've got friends in Highville, um, I was hoping that they would come together at this point where within a few weeks of session being out, we, we created this mess. Uh, as a legislature.
Um, the bill came forward and I don't blame the bill sponsor a bit, but I don't think that 100% of Of the uh I mean, that wasn't an understanding of, of mine at the time. There were issues I had with it like setting up the Disneyland type scenario where they could have taxation, annexed land and be treated just like a city. A lot of us had the same issues. The, the tying up 100% of the proceeds, you know, it, it was, it was mentioned, you know, was it intentional.
That was kind of danced around, um, yeah, it was intentional for leverage. I mean, in my opinion, uh, you want to, you want to negotiate a position of power when you negotiate. I mean, that's, I mean, I would do the same thing if I was presenting a piece of legislation and, you know, wanted to be negotiating from a position of power, um, so I mean, I, I don't, but I, I think I, I think as a legislature we didn't understand what we were doing when we passed this, um, is there
better way to fix it. I'm, I'm open to, uh, uh, you know, unlike Senator, Senator Hill, not all my bills are perfect. Uh I know, I know, and I appreciate it. But no, I mean, so yeah, I mean, maybe this could be
tailored a little bit cleaner for, for the ultimate goal, but that's uh That's uh the committee's ultimate decision. Senator Johnson.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:40:31
First, let me say, Mr. Chairman, that I appreciate your good
heart and appealing to people's better natures. But I'd like to remind the entire committee that we are not judges. We are not in the judicial branch. We're not arbitrators. We don't have an arbitration company or negotiation company. We're legislators. We pass or fail to pass laws. We passed 12 years ago.
And we live with it, Senator Pennzo as his is his authority as a senator introduced a bill to repeal that, and that's certainly OK, but I think that we're treading into the other branch of the government's position when we try to to play judge or play negotiator. That's not our role, and I hope that again your appeal to the the better natures of of people. involved here is admirable, but
I think we need to kind of stay on what our job is. Our job is to pass this bill or not pass this bill and I certainly don't want to, you know, I'm not going to move for immediate consideration, but it's crossed my mind because I think we've, we can allow the people here, and I almost call them litigants because I guess you are litigants and some some other venue, but uh I think we need to kind of stay in our lane and deal with legislation. So Mr. Chairman, I just want to appreciate your
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:42:05
comments there. We're actually hearing the bill and stuff right now, so that's what we're doing. We're actually legislating Senator Johnson. I
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:42:12
don't disagree, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for indulging me. And if there
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:42:16
was a question in there, I might have heard, uh, every bill has unintended consequences, and this is my
attempt to fix consequence that I don't think the legislature was aware of when we passed the bill. Center. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:42:36
Senator Brown, I think I was on the same. My issue because that's why I asked the question. Whereas the city opposed to the detachment in the first place because if the city is not opposed to the detachment, then that means we don't really need to mess with that part of the legislation. If, if what's in question is the fact of the. Of the bond indebtedness and that that piece that that
overarching peace and I think that's what we need to, that's what we need to deal with, uh, because it was testimony before that there was no I, I, I'm I'm not thinking that you all said um, I thought when you all testified,
you said no, we didn't our intent was not to escrow all the money. So that
they could not pay. It was that was that your testimony? And yes, so, so the language
Speaker 154
1:43:38
about escrowing all of it was that was language that was put in by the bill drafters, which is bond council, and it was in order to there's there's a Legal concept of impairment of contract. They wanted to make sure that there was no impairment of contract, and again when this bill was drafted, keep in mind that the thought was that the revenue was about $700,000 a year or something like that, which is essentially what is required that the debt service is about $650,000 a year. And so the idea was that that all of this money
needed to be needed to be set aside in order to pay those bonds, even though the primary source of repayment on the bonds is the system. Revenues from the water and sewer system. Um, but it was never our intent to create a hardship for Hyel. I mean that was never our intent. It's certainly not our board's intent, and that's why we've, you know, if a senator Pinzo mentioned if this is us coming from a position of negotiating strength, we don't have any desire to use that
strength if that's what we have to create hardship for HILL. We have a desire to come up with something that we think is very fair and reasonable and, and makes that transition. smooth and painless as possible for them. And for us and and so and that continues to be our goal. And I know it's our board's goal as well. Does that answer your question.
Unknown speaker
1:45:12
Any other questions from the committee? Penza, what's your, what's your will? I tell you what, Um I guess in closing, I just want
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:45:42
to say I, I hope X and A. Is successful. I'm not trying to hurt X and
A, but I, I think that this came up in a bad situation. Senator Bryant. You mentioned why not just tailor it to a specific section of the bill. Um I would, I would probably be OK with that if the chair would allow a verbal amendment. To just address Uh, certain sections that are struck.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:46:13
And not address the other ones. What the chair would like to see
is some some good faith determinations to have a verbal amendment, possibly for us to have a committee meeting Wednesday to vote and let you get everything put together the mimics the way you want them, we can meet Wednesday afternoon. If you think you can come up with some good faith negotiating. I know the CEO can speak on behalf of his board. I understand how boards work and I understand how CEOs are. They will go along with what you say. 99% of the time.
And the mayor's council is here. I think they're here and willing to work work as well. But if you'd like to pull it down and do that and for y'all to negotiate or whatever word y'all want
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:46:57
to use, I would uh between now and then I would be happy to do that with the the Real realization that Wednesday public health is meeting and it's probably going to be. back to back Uh, morning and after
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:47:10
session. They don't have it on the calendar right now. We're fixing to stick ours on there if you, if you agree.
Speaker 244
1:47:17
Well, or if you want to do that, I think
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:47:20
Ms. Jessica just heard you say that, and hopefully, hopefully it can be a smooth expedited process at that point. We won't have to go through
all the discussions, so yes, we should not have to go through the discussion.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:47:29
You actually pull it back and do I have a commitment from the two of y'all that y'all try to work with him?
Because if you don't, there's no need to go any farther than this. I'd love to. I'm not exactly sure what what what's no question.
Speaker 154
1:47:48
I mean, we, again, we, we've been trying to
Speaker 161
1:47:50
work with them, you know, for 2 years. I've got this in my hands and you didn't mention that while ago. Yeah, I mean, we, we've, we've,
Speaker 154
1:48:00
their position basically all along has been You know We want everything and, and that's what that, that's what that is. It's basically they're not giving anything. And so I'm If you're asking for us to work with Senator Penza, we'll certainly try to do that if you're asking us to work with
the mayor, um, we're open, but we've got, we've got the terms basically that our board has given us, and those are those are out there for for them to accept at this point who we're asking you to work with. Um, I'll certainly
Speaker 317
1:48:33
work with Senator Pino. I We had this
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
1:48:41
doctor. We have this document, but we don't know it's a factual document. It's just their interpretation of what happened of the meetings. I would
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:48:47
agree with you and Secretary Bezos. Get that.
You have a copy of the document yer pins out. Um, I don't know that I do have that
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:49:01
one. I'll give that to you. Miss Jessica will. OK, I think I've got that in a text message if it's what I think it is, so thank you committee. I'll pull
this down and we'll we'll see you Wednesday. OK. Thank you. Thank you. We'll set up a meeting. OK. We will
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:49:16
get to him. Appreciate it. Thank you all for your time. Thanks. Senator Penzo, it's all on you. Work out time to.
Speaker 314
1:49:26
To visit. Did you Sandra Petty Senator Penzo. We don't, we don't give him a copy of that. Thanks.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:50:03
Senator Petty, would you please introduce yourself for the record, and you can tell us legislation that you run to
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:50:11
pass if you want to. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jim Petty, District 29, looking around to see if any of my Baptist friends are in here because uh I want to clarify this is not a spy on your Baptist brother, Bill. This right off the bat, we want to make sure that's clear, but, uh, seriously, what this uh the purpose of this bill is to give the state a a two-year gauge on
the volume of alcohol being shipped into Arkansas as it stands, we really don't know uh how much. That is Um, with a few exceptions, it's currently illegal to ship into alcohol into the state, but it does happen. SB. 447, it requires common carrier shippers like FedEx, UPS, DHL to file quarterly reports with DFA documenting the amount of alcohol they're bringing into the state and who shipped it,
the bill does not create a sting on my Baptist brothers or anyone as far as that goes, uh, the quarterly report in this bill would initiate does not ask for carriers to include any private recipient information like a name or a desk all it asks for is the uh zip. coat and wear the alcohol was delivered, uh, of where the alcohol is delivered and the company that fulfilled the order. It 18 other states have shipper reporting laws already including
Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Louisiana, and the primary shippers of this FedEx, UPS, and DHL already have software to create these reports, so this is not a new burden for them, the Arkansas Trucking Association was consulted and provided input on this bill and basically in conclusion, SB 447 gives DFNA a tool to gauge the volume of alcohol shipped into the state and after a two-year look they can determine if some other steps for regulatory enhancement or
enforcement need to be added. No fiscal impact, and with that I'll be happy to try to answer any questions. Basically all this is report you're asking, asking
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:52:22
for at this point, that is correct. Sent this. Just trying
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:52:29
to, so what exact what is the, is it DFA that asks for the bill or where's the bill? Why do we need to do it? I'm, I'm confused a little bit
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:52:41
so no, this is a, this is a industry request and, and uh it's probably rooted in Arkansas-based small uh uh liquor stores and and and others within the industry, but no, it is not a DFNA requested or initiated bill. What are we going to do with the information
we are going to we're going to allow DFNA to look at it and, and if there's additional enforcement mechanisms because they're not remitting tax or they're not they're breaking the law in other in other ways because they're shipping and they shouldn't be then at that point that's when it would Any additional requirements would be considered at a future date after this two-year period.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:53:48
Either Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Petty, if you don't mind, I'm gonna talk turkey with you. Is that all right? Shoot, yeah, OK, this is about shipments, which probably means gallons or liters or whatever. We're talking about volume. There's nothing in this that would say, OK, and I'm not saying any of these items would be shipped, but this is Oro or Pappy Van Winkle. We don't know
Speaker 335
1:54:20
if it's a $500 bottle of whiskey or or a $20 bottle of whiskey. That's correct. That
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:54:26
is, that is fair. So all we'll know is that we UPS delivered a box of booze to Mark Johnson's house, of course, for his wife, not for me, but and, and it was received by 21 or older person, and that's it. That's their responsibility. It will not tell that much detail. It
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:54:46
will not tell that it was shipped to your house or in your
zip code is zip code? But
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:54:53
now, for example, my zip code is 72223, and I live in the unincorporated part of Pulaski County. I'm not subject to on that to Little Rock sales tax, so they wouldn't know if LeRock's losing that if it went to 72223 in Chinna Valley, which is in the city of Little Rock, or 72223 in the unincorporated area that that. Bit of data might be inaccurate.
Could we kind of estimate that that's true. OK, and I guess the biggest question to start with, are all of these shipments. Technically illegal right now. I don't think all of
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:55:34
them are. There are certain provisions in existing statutes that allow some. I am not, I'm a Baptist, so I'm not familiar with all
of those provisions that have been passed. I'm not a Baptist, but I'm I've certainly been to enough
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:55:53
Baptist churches, and thank you, Senator. I guess where I'm headed on this is that One of the reasons I got off City County locals because they gained the jurisdiction for alcohol and it's just gets pretty convoluted and kind of troublesome, but the fact of
the matter here is if people are buying. A product in Arkansas. And we fixed the problem with whether or not the local tax or the state taxes beingva because now the Amazon or whoever
collects the sales tax, but what we're really talking about here is some people are getting this product and paying proper taxes on it, and some people aren't, and you're trying to establish some kind of I'm gonna call it database or at least a Good faith guesstimate of how much we're volume we're talking about and maybe extrapolate from that how much revenue the state of Arkansas and the localities might not be getting paid.
And, and, and to go one step further, Senator Petty, we're also, I assume, looking at Uh How much sales the local. retailers are losing because of this unfair
out of state competition. Is that a good interpretation
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:57:13
a couple of things first of all, yes, there's, there's probably a suspicion that there are those
that are complying and those that are not, hopefully this bill will be able to help flush that out, for
example, in Kansas in 2020, they found out that there were 198,000, 556 alcohol shipments, some of which were legitimate, some of which Not legitimate legal and some of maybe not in Texas our our friends just to the south of us had 1.2 million, uh, that were identified. So, so I think you're correct in that this probably would identify potentially those. And then what was your, what was
your last question I was saying
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:57:58
is that it certainly people who feel that these out of state shippers are not the carriers, the companies are shipped are unfair competition to the in-state people who obviously are after to charge more because they're collecting tax. Is that a fair consideration so
This is really a uh Data gathering bill is that maybe fair? Yes. At this point, that is correct And now you mentioned Texas and
Kansas. Have they moved to the obvious next step of doing something about the fact after they've collected the data, or are they kind of,
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:58:36
I don't know at this point what they've done with the data. Tennessee was another one I didn't mention, and they identified some as well, so I would suspect that that is probably what has been happening, that they're moving, you know, beyond the data, but these are all relatively new. I would. think in 2020 we know all, we all know what happened there, and there's probably a lot of
home shipments and we are y'all as a legislator made some provisions for that. These are all relatively new and so I I can't speak to what exactly they are doing with those and the
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:59:10
common carriers are not complaining about this. We know of
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:59:13
no known opposition. They're already doing that in neighboring states. They already have a software to to do that. OK, I think I've got my
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:59:21
answers. Thank you, Senator. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions?
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:59:30
Seeing none. Is there anyone here to speak for or against the bill? Seeing
Speaker 350
1:59:38
no one. Senator, would you like to close? I am closed and I would appreciate a good vote. Thank you. And
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:59:45
what is the will of the committee? Motion new passed by Senator Johnson. We have a 2nd, 2 by Senator Love discussion. I'm going to
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:59:54
be a no on this because I'm concerned. We were just gonna burden our carriers
to do the work that's we got sales and use tax. I, I just went online and ordered a bottle
of Pappy Van Winkle. I'm going to pay taxes. It's 18 $39 plus some engraving. What did you order? I
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
2:00:21
I just, I just, uh, I just don't see the, I don't see any good intention coming out of this and uh I I. Like I don't discussion was
good, but I just uh just if this is an industry bill to look at, you know, what they're competing against, uh, they're competing against the free market,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:00:44
so I'll be against the bill. Thank you. Senator Johnson. Rarely do I disagree with my friend Senator Bryant. But Uh, it's about, uh, equity and fairness between our in-state retailers and out of state shippers and retailers, uh, I, if
The local package stores are paying. Taxes, the state of Arkansas. Forget the fact we're the beneficiaries of it. Yes, we have a, we have a dog in this fire, uh, Senator Dismay is going to be asked to balance the budget in a couple of weeks and we've got to have an RSA. Uh, so we need to know what our revenue is, and this may show that we are seriously undercharging this new Point because it Senator Petty said in 2020, the world changed
about this. This stuff started because of COVID and, you know, it started coming in this way, uh, we don't know how much we're losing, uh, we're not asking the common carriers to do something that they're not willing to do
and are doing in other states and have implemented so I think we need to gain this data and then we can decide later what we want to do with it, so I would, would encourage positive vote on this bill. Thank
Speaker 343
2:01:56
you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. If you change your mind? No, I haven't. I just, this is not,
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
2:02:05
this is not a common carrier's fight, they may have agreed to it because their legislature said you will or you will face consequences subject to you not reporting, but uh. Um, this is, this is a consumer. Consumer This is a consumer
issue, not a common carrier issue, so I will still be a no vote. San Dima and then
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:02:27
I guess for me, I just don't understand. What is different in this industry than any other industry where someone's shipping items
to the state of Arkansas and not remitting sales tax back to the state of Arkansas because I think that would be the only difference. I just don't. I just don't understand what I, I'm, I, I agree. I don't understand what this is going to solve by doing it. I, I just don't know what the outcome could be or the ultimate benefit. Besides, I don't know, a
big brother type situation, but that I don't know how else to say it. Fair enough, didn't respond, Mr.
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
2:03:07
Chair. I think it's, oh yeah,
we're in discussion. So I can't get, I can't, I didn't know. I can't
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:03:15
discuss. That Senator Johnson can respond. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and and I hope Senator Pretty, I hope I can
do justice to this. Senator Dismay, I understand exactly what you're saying, but remember the unique situation that alcohol has in the whole scheme of interstate commerce. Uh, the 21st Amendment was passed that repealed prohibition. It gave the authority to regulate alcohol to the states.
And so I have frankly remember being in this room and getting a real lesson on how and I was lobbying for a small beer distributor at the time and I learned that alcohol laws are different because of the of the 21st Amendment and that we, the state of Arkansas have responsibilities to regulate it and collect it and generally in the past there hasn't been any bypass of our three-tiered. System where it's shipped, you
know, it goes from uh uh the manufacturer to the distributor and then to the retailer, that's the three tiers, but when we Got into the world of COVID and we agreed to allow things to come mail order and be delivered to your house that we didn't used to do this thing kind of got shook up a little bit and it's an opportunity for one segment perhaps of that. Uh, alcohol industry to take advantage over the ones that we
by law have granted a license to to be the retail establishments. Now, if we're going to allow that. Retail competition. That's a decision for the General Assembly, but, but make no mistake, we should be the ones to allow that. And if so, regulate it appropriately, tax it in an equitable manner where we're not favoring one entity over another, so I just hope, I hope that clarifies that, and I want to thank Senator Petty for bringing this bill because I
think it's uh it's ultimately going to get us to where we need to be. It's, it's a part. The solution, it's, but it's not the whole solution, but I think it's moving in the right direction. We can't make good decisions about good information, and I think this will yield good information and I apologize to my friend Senator Bryant because, you know, I I rarely disagree with him. He's so logical, but anyway, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
2:05:42
Senator Johnson. Any other discussion? Saying none, what's the will look meat?
Oh yeah, we already had a motion do pass in a second, so. Uh, all those in favor
say aye. pose the same sign. Center, your, your bill failed. With no other business, we are adjourned till Wednesday. At the chair.
Agenda
CALL TO ORDER - Sen. Ricky Hill
REGULAR AGENDA
HB1536 M. McElroy TO WITHHOLD STATE TRANSPORTATION FUNDING FROM A SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE PASSENGER RESTRAINT SYSTEMS IN SCHOOL BUSES UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS.
SB330 J. Scott TO AMEND THE CONTENTS OF THE WRITTEN DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST AND THE DRIVER'S INSTRUCTION MANUAL; AND TO ADD HAND SIGNALS USED BY BICYCLE OPERATORS TO THE WRITTEN DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST AND THE DRIVER'S INSTRUCTION MANUAL.
SB258 C. Penzo TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS DIGITAL RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, AND TRUST ACT.
SB397 D. Wallace TO PROTECT CONFIDENTIAL PERSONAL INFORMATION OF RAIL EMPLOYEES IN REPORTS INVOLVING RAILROAD FATALITIES.
SB411 Crowell TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE HEIGHT OF VEHICLES; AND TO CREATE AN OFFENSE FOR THE OPERATION OF A VEHICLE WITH A MODIFIED BUMPER.
SB416 Irvin TO REPEAL THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE GRANT PROGRAM; AND TO REPEAL THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE FUND.
HB1647 S. Meeks TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS; TO CHANGE THE NAME OF THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
HB1666 S. Meeks TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ARKANSAS SELF-FUNDED CYBER RESPONSE PROGRAM.
HB1654 Tosh TO AUTHORIZE THE ISSUANCE OF A SPECIAL LICENSE PLATE FOR THE MAKE- A-WISH FOUNDATION OF THE MID SOUTH; AND TO ADDRESS THE INVENTORY OF THE MID-SOUTH COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION SPECIAL LICENSE PLATE.
SB447 J. Petty TO REQUIRE PERMITTED COMMON CARRIERS TO SUBMIT REPORTS DETAILING SHIPMENTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES INTO THE STATE.
HB1606 Steimel TO ALLOW A LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO AUTHORIZE THE OPERATION OF A
UTILITY TASK VEHICLE ON A DESIGNATED PUBLIC STREET OR HIGHWAY WITHIN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT'S JURISDICTION SUBJECT TO CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS.
SB96 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DETACHMENT BY A REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY; AND TO REPEAL REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY DETACHMENT.
ADJOURNMENT
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — TRANSPORTATION, TECHNOLOGY & LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS - SENATE, Mar 17, 2025 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Mark D. McElroy
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Senator Ricky Hill
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Senator Mark Johnson
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Senator Steve Crowell
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Senator Joshua Bryant
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Senator Missy Irvin
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Senator Clint Penzo
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Senator Fredrick J. Love
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Justin Allen
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Alexis Main
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Dustin Carl
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Senator Matt Stone
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Speaker 314
Senator Jim Petty
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Senator Jonathan Dismang
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Speaker 343