City hires code enforcement officer

The city of Berryville has hired a part-time code enforcement officer, Mayor Tim McKinney told the Berryville City Council at its regular meeting on Tuesday, May 2.

At the council’s April 18 meeting, McKinney had told council members that the city would into hiring a part-time employee to address issues with parked cars blocking access to streets. That came after council member Max Nichols said he had been contacted by a resident concerned about such a situation on Lynn Street, which is off of St. George Avenue just east of Arkansas Highway 21 North.

At the May 2 meeting, McKinney said the city’s new enforcement officer will “shadow” a code enforcement officer in Green Forest before starting work in Berryville.

“He’s going to start out at three days a week and then we’ll just kind of see where it goes,” McKinney said.

Police chief Robert Bartos delivered his department’s monthly report for April. Berryville police issued 104 citations in April, Bartos said, down from 136 in April 2022. There were 67 offenses reported, up from 63 a year ago. The department had a clearance rate of 90 percent for the month, Bartos said, and took in $1,600 in fines and bonds.

Bartos said there were 20 accidents reported in April 2023, up from 17 the previous year.

In other business, the council approved the first reading of a proposed ordinance that would vacate undeveloped alleyway easements within and abutting city-owned property at the future site of a new Berryville public library.

“These have never been developed or used,” McKinney said.

The city has agreed to donate the land across the city pool for the new library, which is the subject of an ongoing fundraising campaign.

“This is just the first step to kind of get everything cleaned up for if and when the library building ever gets going on, we can have this out of way and be ready to transfer the deed over to them at that time,” mayoral assistant Jay Lee told the council. “I would think that they are going to have to commission a new survey once we get this approved and filed and everything. The library would have to commission a new survey to then determine all the new property boundaries.”

McKinney asked council members to consider whether they would like to pursue a “WayFinder” sign project, which would feature signs for important city attractions and points of interest. McKinney said the idea was first raised before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with students in the Berryville School District’s EAST program working to identify locations for three signs.

McKinney said being involved in the program requires a significant amount of paperwork and the signs themselves can cost as much as $7,000 to $10,000 each.

“I noticed in Harrison … they’ve got those signs all over town, and they’re a different type,” McKinney said. “They don’t look like they would be near as expensive.”

McKinney said he believes the project “would be a good program.”

“The kids have done a lot of the footwork and everything,” he said. “… I think we could get a pretty nice thing going in Berryville for $40,000 or $50,000. We’re kind of at the point where, we haven’t spent any money. If we want to pursue it, it’s going to take some money. We do have the money in the budget, if y’all want to pursue it. I don’t think we need a motion or anything, but if there’s no objection we’ll start pursuing this a little more. We may start spending a little money. I think we can find cheaper signs than $10,000.”

The Berryville City Council’s next regular meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 16, at City Hall.