City, County & Local Affairs- House

He'll take over. Um, I'll let the committee staff introduce themselves. I'm Katie Hickam, um, and this is my first session here. I'm super excited. Got lots first. I guess they don't have mics over there so we have Yesenia Alvarado is a committee assistant and Sydney Sims is a committee attorney. Oh, she's not here. She's not here. I'm sorry. um. So this committee will, will be held on, uh, Wednesday's 10 o'clock and Fridays if we happen to be meeting on Fridays. I don't think that'll happen. I think, uh, generally in the past, this committee has handled their business in uh in one day of the week and we got that done on, on Wednesdays. Uh, we will need a quorum to start the meetings. uh, Quorum is 11 committee members, if y'all could do your best to be on time and in your seat, so it'll be easy to see a quorum and we can get started, uh, started on time, that would be very helpful. Um Committee agendas are prepared in accordance with House rules. They will be prepared 2 days in advance. So if you want, if you wanna run a bill in a meeting in here it's got to be, you know, prepared at least 2 days ahead of time. Um, you will get notifications if you have a bill coming up in here. After a bill or resolution has appeared on the committee agenda and has been called up for consideration and the sponsor is not present. The item will be placed at the bottom of the active agenda. If a bill or resolution has been called up for consideration 3 times, it will automatically drop to the deferred list unless you contact staff and tell them, hey, you're, you're not gonna be here, um, and don't want it put on the deferred list. If a bill is put on the deferred list, it takes, uh, 2 days To, to get it back, it takes 2 days' notice to take it off of the er that will give the public time to know that that bill is being put back on the active agenda, and they can show up to testify if they so choose. Um, if you have an amendment to the bill, it needs to be in writing, and we need to let staff know about that. I think you need 5 signed copies of, of that amendment. Most of y'all are, are where all this stuff. Um, if you have a bill that is gonna be controversial or if you have people coming in to testify for a bill that are coming in from a long ways away, out of state, possibly let me know or let, uh, Katie know and we'll get that on a special order of business and we'll have a day set aside to run that so we'll. Be a little more organized with that. Um, at that I will give everybody up here a chance to introduce some sales Representative Schultz, would you like to To start Good morning. Uh, Representative Bart Schultz, District 28. I live in Cave City. This is my 2nd term in the House, 2nd term on this committee. I appreciate you guys don't ever. Hesitate to holler at me if you need me. Thanks. And we'll just go right down the line here. Start with Johnny Ry. Who you gonna turn your mic on? OK. Another thing on the agenda that we didn't get cleared up. Everybody needs to sign in on their little iPads, whatever they, whatever you call them. So it's uh 011010 in your district number. So if you'll sign in, then you can activate your mic. 10 and then your district number. OK, you can borrow your neighbor's mic. Oh, no, ma'am. Oh, she can turn it, OK. I think you're on. You're on. Oh, OK. Thank you, sir. Representative Johnny Rod, district number 36. Honor to be with you guys. Representative Tipy McCullough, District 74 here in Little Rock. I'm going into my 4th term this time and I think I've been on this committee 33 terms. Thanks. Thank you. Representative Mindy McAlinden, House District 10, Bentonville, Bella Vista, a little bit of Centerton. Uh, this is my 2nd term and my 2nd time on this committee. Great to be here. Representative Rebecca Birks, I'm House District 11. I live in Springdale. This is my 2nd term, and 2nd term on this committee as well. Representative Tara Shepherd, this is my 2nd term and my 1st time on this committee and I'm looking forward to serving and building, learning more about how I can be a local partnerships. Thank you Uh, Representative Britt McKenzie, I represent the great people of Rogers, Gateway, Garfield, Novoca. It's my first time on City County Locals, 2nd term. Look forward to working with everybody. Representative Alyssa Brown, and normally I have a voice. It's just gone. I mean I'm going to represent District 41, which is Cleburne and Stone County, and this is my first term and excited to be on this committee. Representative Brad Hall, I'm from the, uh, huge metropolitan city of Rudy, Arkansas, and, uh, it's my first term, so we'll see how it goes. Hey y'all, I'm White Andrews, um, State Rep District 98. I live in Camden, but my district stretches really from East Camden all the way to Louisville. Most of most washed up part of Columbia, Nevada and Lafayette counties. Uh, good morning, everyone. I'm Scott Richardson. I'm from up Northwest Arkansas. Rogers, Bentonville, a little bit of, uh, Cave Springs. This is my 2nd term. Uh, this was, uh, in my 2nd round on City County. Actually, I think this was my second choice, but I'm really happy to be on this committee. I think it's a, I think it's there. Other than that one little stint on that one little bill that we had last round, it was uh it was a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to another great session. Good morning, Stetson Painter, District 3, Northern Central Arkansas, uh, the great town of Mountain Home in Viola, the best looking part of the state and that's where everybody in your district comes and has hangouts on the lakes, so I appreciate it. First time being on the committee, looking forward to working with everybody. Appreciate it. She. I'm I'm Representative John Milligan. I'm uh from Northeast Arkansas District 33, uh, starting my third term and my first time on this committee, so look forward to working with each and everyone on the committee and everybody in the audience. Oh Thank you. Sorry y'all, I was tardy. um, Ashley Hudson, I represent District 75, which is West Little Rock. This is my 3rd term, 2nd time on this committee. I'm glad to see a lot of faces out here in the crowd that I recognize and looking forward to getting started. Thanks. Aaron Pilkington, uh, representative, uh, from District 45, Pope and Johnson County, which includes Clarksville, the Jewel, the River Valley, um, second time being on this committee, I was on it back in my 2019 1st session. I hated it so much. I swore I'd never come back. Uh, but this committee ain't acting right, so now I'm back, so. Uh, Representative Fran Kavanaugh, District 30, part of Lawrence, part of Green, part of Craighead. Uh, this is my 5th term and my 4th term on this committee. Glad to be here. The morning represented by Coha. I represent, uh, representative, uh, excuse me, District 93. The starting my 7th term, 6 of those on this committee. I currently serve parts of Jefferson, Lincoln, Cleveland, and Drew County, and I'm excited about being back on one of the most important committees that we have on the house. Thank you. I think that takes care of all our members, um. Oh, I'm sorry, we had. Had one come in late. You Then just my district number. Hi, uh, Representative Carolyn Brown, yes, I did get here late, um. I represent District 67, which is about half of Sherwood and half of Jacksonville, and I'm serving my 6th term and this is my 2nd time on this committee by choice. Thank you. I'm looking forward to serving with all of you. All right. Next, we'll move on to legislative audit staff. Do y'all, y'all want to come to the table and introduce yourselves. Uh, Joe Archer attorneys, uh, we're at the south end of the first floor if we can do anything for you. I'm glad to help you. Charlotte camp legislative a special projects manager. Thank you all very much. Next, um. Governor's office Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name's Josh Stewart. Uh, thank you all for having me. I look forward to a great session together. If you need anything, just let me know. Thank you. Um, Arkansas Farm Bureau. And then we'll take Attorney General and then. You should be on. Good morning members. Good morning, Chairman, uh, Will Hopkins, director of local affairs for Arkansas Farm Bureau, and I look forward to working with all of you this session. Thank you. Thank you. Morning chairs, members of the committee. I'm Deputy Attorney General Noah Watson and uh my colleagues and I, well let introduce themselves. I look forward to working with you. My name is Kelly Summerside and I work with the Attorney General's office and I'm looking forward to working with all of you this session. Hi, my name is Jody Keener. I'm with the Attorney General's office. I'm glad to be here. Jim Olsen, I go by Will. I'm also with the Arkansas Attorney General's office. Thank you all very much. Uh, Arkansas Association of Counties. Y'all like to come up. Morning, Mr. Chair. Mr. Vice Chair and members of the committee, uh, my name's Chris Vines. I'm the executive director with the Association of Counties, uh, and with me is Josh Curtis, Josh, go ahead and introduce yourself if you would work these, there we go, uh, Josh Curtis Association, Arkansas Counties, uh, I look forward to working with each and every one of you. It's always great to be in this room, in this committee. It's a great committee that we do good work for cities and counties and, uh, I appreciate y'all serving on this committee. And I'd like to add if we have a couple more people in the room that I would like to introduce, and that's uh Mark Whitmore and Taylor Hanford with our office and. Uh, Lindsey French could not be here. She's in the state agencies meeting, but all 5 of us are, are subject matter experts with the county, so there's a chance at any given time that you'll be hearing from one of us on, on bills that are going through here or if you have any questions and we're very happy to help. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Municipal League Good morning, Mr. Chair. Mr. Vice Chair, uh, uh, my name is John Wilkerson, members of the committee. I'm John Wilkerson, general counsel of the Arkansas Municipal League, and to my left is Jack. Jack Critchard, uh, good morning, uh. I'll let John talk about briefly about our convention and the invitation, but I wanted to, uh, Echo what Representative Hokum said about this committee and the importance of it, uh, not only Does everything you do in here affect the lives of the majority of the people who live in Arkansas because they live in cities, but those who don't live in cities live in the county, so you impact every Arkansan is important work and we appreciate each and every one of you. a conference is starting in about 2 hours, uh, so I'll be heading over there to the statehouse Convention Center. I hope, hopefully you all received invitations to our happy hour tonight and our reception, uh, later on we hope that you can all join us uh on behalf of the cities of Arkansas, um, and local governments entirely across the state. We, we welcome um working together on issues that affect all our our all Arkansans, uh, we have some ideas, but we're not, we don't believe we have the corner market on the right ideas. So we're very much looking forward to working with everybody in this committee. addressing the issues that uh every Arkansan faces. So thank you. Thank you very much. Sheriff's Association. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'm Scott Bradley, executive director for the Arkansas Sheriff's Association. I've been here for about about 7 years. Um, got to work with many of you on several different things over the years and say welcome to the new members. I'll always try to make myself available to you. I've got cards if you don't have my cell number or my email address, I'll be glad to give you before you leave. If you have an issue with the sheriffs or something, a bill you want to bring up, want their opinion or you just want to let them know what's going on. I will share that with my board and, and try to put you in touch with them and we'll be here at the at the committee meetings to try to make ourselves available for you. Thank you. And Paul Calvert, liberty and justice. And Paul Calvert, um, I'm excited to be here this session. I wear two different hats. Um, I'm part of the Dave Ellswick show, and he's planning to be broadcasting on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on the 3rd floor across from the house doors, um, so my other hat is, um, legislative advocacy. I am excited about this committee. I'm hoping to restore some justice to cities and counties this session. Thank you very much. Thank you. Maybe that wraps up everybody in the room, I think these will all be good resources for y'all if y'all need somebody to reach out to for advice on legislation or help with whatever, whatever you're working on, be it dealing with sheriffs or cities, counties, whatever. So y'all. Get their contacts and, and feel free to work with them and, and please do. One other thing that I wanna talk about the way I want to run this, this committee, as I know in the past, y'all have been used to asking for follow up questions. I don't want to do that. I want, I wanna give y'all a little latitude to ask questions, um, work. Through these issues if you're, if you're on a path trying to dig in and and get to the bottom answer answer. To one of your questions then just please continue on. I don't want to delay things by asking you to stop and ask for a follow-up question. Um, if it, if I think it gets to the point of it's just going on and on and on, and we're not getting anywhere, then I'll step in and stop you, um, kind of redirect things, but other than that, I really want you to, to be able to. Ask the questions that you want to ask, um, we've got a lot in the queue, you know, I may ask you to stop, pause, and we'll. Come back to you or something like that. Um, the other thing would be limiting debate. These committees are the only time that the public has time or, or is able to really, uh, come in and testify on the, on these bills, and I think that's a very important part of the legislative process and we need to be very cautious about how we limit that, um, so I will not be taking many requests to limit debate unless it is something that is just been beaten to death. We're not getting any new information, um, then at that time, that's probably appropriate and we'll, we'll consider that, but other than that, I really want the public to have input, be able to freely sit at the table and testify and and. You know, get their, get their words in in committee because like I said, it's the only time they have to do that once these bills pass this committee and they get on the House floor, there's no more public input like that. It's up to us at that point, so. Um That's really it. I think do you all have any, any questions or anything y'all wanna add? Mr. Vice Chair, do you have anything? All right. Well, I think that uh sums up everything we have on the agenda with that, we are adjourned.