Happy New Year!
City Council meet for its January meetings, as I mentioned in a previous post there are two items I wanted to highlight::
- Chronic Property Nuisances Ordinance
- City Budget and Finances for 2023
City Budgets and Finances for 2023
City Council recently reviewed the entirety of the proposed City Budget for 2023 – all of the details can now be found online on the Finance Department pages here. If you want a good high level overview of the budgets I would encourage you to read the budget summary provided by the City Administrator here. The 2023 budget plans for an almost $8 Million increase in expenditures from 2022 (on a previous ~$23 Million budget). This increase reflects a number of facilities maintenance items for planned capital buys (think public safety such as a new ambulance) as well as a significant investment in deferred building maintenance.
If you have questions about any of the past or planned budget absolutely get in touch.
Chronic Property Nuisances Ordinance
After several months of cross department work City Council passed an law that will help the City regulate Chronic Nuisance Properties. The new law provides real consequences for property owners who fail to maintain their locations. While this originated with the ‘Rental Program Committee’ the law is not limited to rentals – this applies to all private properties in the City both residential and commercial.
The Ordinance does not create new standards for properties per se, rather it provides consequences and enforcement mechanisms if a property is repeatedly violating other sections of our property maintenance code.
One additional takeaway that was noted in several Council meetings that really is remarkable is the way this work was done. I have been a part of City Council for more than 5 years and this may be the first ordinance I have been a part of where so many parts of the City – Council, Administration (including Fire, Police, Health) as well as several residents all collaborated actively over the course of several working meetings followed by 2 readings and a public hearing – and in those meetings there was such a sense of shared direction and purpose. It really is how these things should be done. It was a nice contrast to what we see in politics at so many other levels.
What do you think? Let your elected officials know!
email and phone numbers of all your City Council members are online – https://www.springdale.org/city-council/page/meet-your-city-council
and
City Administration as well –
https://www.springdale.org/mayor-clerk-council
or
Connect with your Neighbors –
https://www.facebook.com/groups/333111242219243
Related Links
Note – on July 31, 2023 Springdale released a new website and previous links were not maintained as well as many minutes and agendas offline.
Past Minutes and Agendas: https://www.springdale.org/meetings/recent
Upcoming meetings: https://www.springdale.org/meetings
Request Public Records: https://www.springdale.org/living-springdale/page/public-records-access