Berryville city council talks potholes, code enforcement

Potholes were a topic of discussion during the regular meeting of the Berryville City Council on Tuesday, June 7.

Prompted by council member Jason Williams, the initial discussion centered on what Williams described as “a pretty big pothole on Elm Street.”

Tim McKinney

Mayor Tim McKinney said the city was aware of the issue.

“There’s a water leak there and they’ve made a ‘one call,’ ” McKinney said, referring to the “Call Before You Dig” program. “We’re waiting on that to dig it up and repair the road and the water leak all at the same time.”

McKinney added that the city’s street crews will have a lot on their plates this summer.

“We need to do a lot of patching,” McKinney said. “We’ve got several places around town that we need to fix. We’ve kind of gotten behind on that with other projects, but we’ll put that on the list.”

Among those other projects were the recently completed renovations to the city’s downtown square, which McKinney dedicated during a ceremony June 10.

The overall cost for renovation project — which McKinney first proposed in 2021 and which includes a new gazebo, fountain, clocks, lamps, sidewalks and landscaping — was greatly reduced thanks to the use of city workers for much of the project.

“It’s about half of what the engineer said we could do it for by doing the work in-house,” McKinney said last week, adding that the final cost of the project is still being tallied. “We came out really well on it and we were able to pay for it with existing funds.”

McKinney also spoke with council members about the possibility of hiring a code enforcement officer for the city, which could relieve some of the burden on the city’s building inspector and the city attorney.

“Our building inspector is doing it now, and it has to go through the city attorney and we’re just not getting it done,” McKinney said. “They’re busy and they don’t have time to follow up.”

McKinney said he’d recently spoken with Green Forest Mayor Jerry Carlton and discussed the matter.

“They have a building inspector and a code enforcement officer and they said it’s worked out real well for them,” McKinney said. “They’ve had a lot of success with it.”

After receiving positive feedback from council members, McKinney said he’d keep exploring the possibility.

The council also reviewed the monthly report from the city’s Saunders Museum.

The report, prepared by museum director Joan Lasseter and issued for the month of May, showed the museum hosted 132 visitors — 125 adults and seven children, including groups from Berryville-based Nighthawk Custom Firearms and Berryville High School — and took in $853.50, including $577.50 in admission fees, $266 in merchandise sales and a $10 donation.

“It’s down a little bit from last year,” said council member Linda Riddlesperger, who volunteers at the museum, “bit it’s still holding pretty good.”

Last year, the museum hosted 155 visitors in May and took in $958.75.

McKinney added that he’d had a chance to view some of the renovations recently undertaken at the museum, work that included installing new carpet and a new security system, saying the museum had “a really nice appeal.”

In new business, the council approved a request from the Berryville School District to make use of George Pond on Tuesday, June 21, for a special teaching visit from the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission as part of the district’s summer school curriculum.

The program is expected to begin at 8:30 a.m. and last until 12:30 p.m. with an estimated 175 students participating.

The council’s next meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m., June 21, at Berryville City Hall.