City Council preps for court creation

■ Aldermen tabled a proposed ordinance that would regulate outdoor lighting.

The Bella Vista City Council took additional steps to establish a district court in the city and, after further discussion, tabled an ordinance regulating outdoor lighting.

The action came during its regular session Monday.

The council unanimously approved an ordinance authorizing the purchase of district court management software and product support for the rest of 2017 for $22,300.

Mayor Peter Christie said the software in question, Virtual Justice, is used by many municipalities in Arkansas, including Pea Ridge.

The council also unanimously approved renovation of a court facility at 612 W. Lancashire Blvd., by Marion Company, which bid $104,405 for the project.

Additionally, director of Community Development Services Chris Suneson said the city is including a 10 percent contingency to cover unforeseen circumstances, bringing the total amount going into the renovation project to $114,895.

The council also unanimously approved an amendment to the city budget to hire a full-time court clerk and cover startup costs for the court.

Christie said that while the start-up costs are high, totaling roughly $290,000, having the court in town is expected to save the city $30,000 each year.

The payback, he said, will take time, but it also offers less tangible benefits upfront, including offering residents a shorter trip for their court dates and leaving officers in town when they need to appear for court.

“It’s convenient and it gives us an opportunity to serve our constituents better,” he said. “I do believe in my heart of hearts that this is the right thing to do.”

One portion of the costs, he said, was not yet accounted for. The city will need to continue paying to host some older cases that were filed in Bentonville’s system, he said, and the costs for that have yet to be determined.

Some less-serious cases, he said, will need to be dropped altogether. In January, the police will have two officers working through these old cases to reduce inventory.

Council member Doug Fowler said he agreed this is a good move for the city.

“I’m personally excited about it,” he said. “I think it’s one more step in the continuum of making Bella Vista a real city.”

The council discussed a proposed ordinance to regulate outdoor lighting placed more than eight feet off the ground.

Council member Linda Lloyd proposed an amendment to exclude streetlights erected because of and paid for by the city and specifying these regulations are for R1-zoned properties only, in addition to defining a lighting fixture as “an outdoor artificial illuminating device, whether permanent or portable, used for illumination or advertisement, including searchlights, spotlights and floodlights, whether for architectural lighting, parking lot lighting, landscape lighting or street lighting.”

The amendment failed with council members Lloyd, Fowler and John Flynn in favor and James Wozniak and Brian Bahr in opposition. Christie declined to cast a vote that could push this amendment into the necessary majority.

This ordinance, she said, was designed not to prevent security lighting, but instead to prevent lighting from getting into other people’s properties. She’s talked with residents, she said, who have difficulty sleeping or watching TV because a neighbor’s lights intrude.

“I believe that citizens of BV are entitled to enjoy their own property without intrusions from adjoining properties,” she said. “This is a small, rural community. This is not downtown Rogers.”

Council member James Wozniak said he didn’t think this was a problem.

So all of a sudden if somebody wants a light for security, they’re not going to be able to have it?” he asked. “For 30 or 40 years light has been leaking into bedrooms all over the world and all of a sudden you can’t have it.”

Residents, he said, should be able to get used to lights the same way someone near train tracks or an airport would get used to their situation.

The council voted 4-1 to table the ordinance indefinitely, with Lloyd in opposition.

Council members unanimously approved a resolution to pay for construction of a northbound left turn lane at the intersection of U.S. Highway 71 and Mercy Way.

The engineering estimate placed the project’s cost at $49,362.50, but the lowest bid, from APAC, came in at $112,932.09.

Christie said that the cost is higher than anticipated in part because the state required some design changes and in part because construction is a busy — and as a result, expensive — business right now.

But the intersection’s safety should be improved, he said. There have been accidents at that intersection because people have tried to make left turns, he said.

The council also approved the condemnation of a structure at 9276 SuitsUs Drive and expressed support for collection of sales tax from online sales.