Private club license voted on at May City Council meeting
The Malvern City Council met for its monthly meeting Monday evening at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center. Mayor Brenda Weldon was not in attendance due to illness, so City Clerk/ Treasurer Phyllis Dial called the meeting to order in Weldon’s stead. Council member Peggy Lusinger was also absent from the meeting.
Council member Mary Fraction gave the invocation, and after the attendees recited the Pledge of Allegiance, the council members approved the minutes from last month’s April 11 meeting. After a short discussion, they also moved to approve the current department reports.
Moving to old business, Dial gave a second reading by title only of an ordinance closing an undeveloped portion of the road leading to the Gracepointe Apostolic Church, the title of which reads, “An ordinance vacating part of Hot Spring Street within the city of Malvern, Arkansas.” The ordinance will receive its third reading at the next City Council meeting in June.
The first item of new business was a resolution stating no objection to a private club license for Cantina Cinco de Mayo, located at 1625 Martin Luther King Blvd. in the former Pizza Hut building.
The resolution reads, “Now comes on a meeting of the City Council of Malvern, Arkansas. That the city of Malvern has no objection to the application for a private club license by Cantina Cinco de Mayor [ sic] pursuant to ACT 1112 of 2017.
Council member Larry Stiles voted against the resolution, but all other Council members present voted in the affirmative.
The next item of business was a motion to accept the recommendation by the Civil Service Commission to fill the representative vacancy in Ward 1.
The members of the council were shown a letter addressed to Weldon from Herman Grayer with the Malvern Civil Service Commission Grayer stated
stated the CSC would like to recommend Aubrey Hill to fill the vacancy on the commission as a representative for Ward 1. The term would expire April 1, 2027. The council members present unanimously agreed to accept the recommendation.
The final order of business pertained to the possible use of American Rescue Plan Act funds for local street repair. The members were shown correspondence between Weldon and Caran Curry, grants attorney with the Arkansas Municipal League.
Curry stated the United States Treasury’s Final Rule, adopted Jan. 6, “now permits cities to elect to use their Rescue funding on any governmental services provided they elected ( during the first annual report) to take the “standard allowance” on revenue replacement up to the amount of its entire award.”
The correspondence goes on to state, “This means that cities can use the funding for such things as streets, parks, trails, IT and other items that originally were not eligible.”
Several council members voiced the opinion that despite the letter, they wanted more clarification before moving forward with any specific project plans. Council member J. Wayne Reynolds said the city officials had received conflicting information from the Municipal League previously.
Dial said Mayor Weldon wanted her to remind the council that there is a small window to complete street repair projects because of the weather. The council voted to table the discussion until more information about the laws pertaining to the proper use of the ARPA funds.
The Malvern City Council meets the second Tuesday of every month. Meetings are currently held at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center, beginning at 6: 30 p. m.
For more information, visit the city’s website https:// www. malvernar. gov/ index. php.