Maumelle panel approves delay in park’s plans

Resolution gives the mayor 6 months to find a solution

Members of the Maumelle City Council last week voted to approve a resolution that will give Mayor Caleb Norris six more months to determine what the city should do with a park and facility near the Arkansas River.

The resolution passed on a 7-1 vote, with Council Member Steve Mosley voting in opposition.

Discussions of what to do with Park on the River sparked debate after the council realized the property contract they shared with Team Summit LLC/Timmons Arts Foundation had expired years ago.

A review of the city’s budget revealed that the contract with the city had expired in 2020.

Timmons has been renting the space out to people since 2020, despite the fact that the city did not renew or acknowledge the partnership when the contract ended.

Before its expiration, the contract allowed Timmons to rent the space for weddings and events, while agreeing to pay a portion of proceeds from the rentals to the city.

Under the contract, Summit and Timmons agreed to pay the city $1,000 a month and 25% of the net revenue — which includes all expenses incurred, “of all venue rental sold by Timmons at the property.”

The resolution approved last week will allow the council and mayor to gather more public opinion and thoughts on what to do with the space, while renewing the contract with Timmons for the time being.

New details in the approved resolution establish that Timmons will pay the city a flat rate of $1,500 each month instead of all the separate fees laid out in the former agreement.

Mosley opposed renewing the contract with the company, citing concerns that somebody needed to acknowledge the lack of funds billed/paid to the city from 2020 to today.

According to records requested by Mosley through the Freedom of Information Act, the city is missing an estimated $70,000 from Timmons that was never billed.

A further look into the city’s finances show that the department stopped billing Timmons in May 2019.

“At the very least, this is gross incompetence on our accounting department,” Mosley said.

The mayor agreed, add

ing: “It should’ve been apparent we weren’t getting paid for those years.”

Norris added, however, that the finance department at that time was completely different — functioning with unintentional “gross error.”

“We’re working on our books [now] in such a way that these nonsensical, completely unacceptable errors and oversights are caught, recognized and identifiable early on,” Norris said.

In the March meeting, Council Member Christine Gronwald supported renewing the contract with Summit and Timmons.

She said the council should look to better support Summit and Timmons instead of trying to hand the facility over to the parks department.

Staff with Maumelle’s parks department also said they could not manage and rent out the facility in the way Timmons has been able to. They added that the chairs, tables and other amenities are offered through Gloria Timmons’ contributions in her role as the event planner.

“I don’t think [Parks and Recreation] is set up currently for event management where they’re going to market, promote and staff an event,” Council Member Chad Gardner said. “I’m not interested, at this point, in placing this in the hands of parks and rec. I want to have a short-term solution, get under contract if that’s what we want to do and do like the resolution said and study this for six months and see what happens down the road. I also agree that we need to have a long-term plan.”

In the April meeting, Gronwald suggested that the council should take covid-19 into consideration relating to the years of financial losses or lack of events booked by Timmons.

“I want to be very careful when we say there was no revenue in four years and that we’re missing $70,000,” Gronwald said. “I mean, those years were covid. There should’ve been a conversation that said, ‘Hey, let’s suspend this lease.’ Though that wasn’t said, that’s what I attribute those three years to be. There’s enough blame to go around but at some point we have to figure this out and move forward with forward movement plans.”

Timmons also spoke at the meeting to address concerns by the council.

“Is this personal?” Timmons asked the council in response to comments made in the previous meeting where one member implied that renewing the contract would be something similar to charity, whereas the city needed to focus on making profit. “I don’t think what I give to the city is charity. I give service to my community and I have done that and been proud of that for so many years. You guys act like the time during covid was happy, happy, joy, joy. It shut everything down, at least for my business. I paid everything I was charged. I just thought, oh, they’re giving me a break because they know that the governor has shut the darn city down. You keep talking about these years where everybody was struggling. I was giving what I didn’t have to give.”

Timmons reiterated that she encourages the council to investigate their concerns, but said she was upset with how members of the council have navigated the issues.

“You’re right to check into your questions [about billing], but the way you guys have done it and the things that you have said, really hurt my feelings, and it takes a lot to hurt my feelings,” Timmons said. “I’ve been told, you know, you go talk to that little Black girl and she’ll give you anything. A Maumelle resident told somebody that. And, of course, I gave them what they needed. I’m a 70-year-old person and people are still calling me ‘little Black girl.’ That’s like me calling you a little White boy. I’m just disappointed because I defend you guys to no end and you don’t even know that. I take the heat for a lot of stuff you guys have done.”

Gardner also agreed with Gronwald that he also doesn’t necessarily agree that funds are missing.

“Each of you guys have known me for years,” Timmons said. “Each of you know my service, know my heart and it is your job to look into what you think is happening. I welcome that. I want you to go and find that everything was done, at least on our part, like it should have. The only downfall we had was February of 2020 when everything closed down.”

Council member Terry Williams followed Timmons’ comments with details from the proposed resolution.

“Our very capable mayor has already owned all of this flawed issue,” Williams said. “We all know that covid hit and we all know that everybody struggled and we all know that there’s a problem. What we need to do is allow the mayor to get to the bottom of it, give him some time to figure out what we need to do and bring it back to us to vote for, because that’s what we do.”