Mayor Tim McKinney’s State of the City Address

Berryville Mayor Tim McKinney delivered his State of the City Address to the Berryville City Council on Tuesday, Feb. 25. Here is a transcript of the address:

Berryville began 2025 with a bang when we finally closed the deal with Messer, an international corporation that is the largest industrial and specialty gas company in the world. The City had been working with this company for almost two years, during which time Messer negotiated electrical rates, looked at different parcels in our business park and made sure Berryville was a good fit for them. It was a group effort to finally close the deal, and I want to thank AEDC and Entergy for their assistance and cooperation in making this happen. Messer’s $70 million dollar investment in our community will have an impact on our community for many years.

Using a formula which is used by AEDC to calculate the estimated economic impact on our community, this investment will have an annual impact of $7.1 million in wages, 64 total jobs and $950,000 in Federal, State and local taxes. When using the same calculation for the expansion of the Mid-States Specialty Eggs plant in Berryville, the impact is estimated at $2.2 million in wages, 43 jobs and $200,000 in total taxes, it is easy to see what type of impact the Berryville Regional Business Park is starting to have on our local economy. These kinds of projects in our Business Park send a definitive signal to other businesses that Berryville is a great place to locate their business or industry.

This was truly a group effort with many working with us to accomplish our goal, but I have to give a big shoutout to our Economic Development Director Dean Lee. Dean worked tirelessly on this, and it seemed every time we hit a snag Dean just doubled down and found a solution to keep this project moving forward. Dean was not going to let this slip away from us and his hard work paid off, I think we need to keep him on the payroll for a while.

We also received news this year that two nationally branded retail businesses will be opening new stores in Berryville within the next year, TJ Maxx and Tractor Supply Co. These new businesses will provide our citizens with more shopping opportunities and hopefully keep more of our tax dollars here in Berryville instead of other cities in the region. These businesses choosing Berryville show that we have a thriving economy and a bright future. Businesses like Tractor Supply Co. and TJMaxx do not just throw darts at a map to pick locations for new stores, since much research is done before we even know they are looking at our town. They also do not come to a community of our size unless they know we have a vibrant economy and a future for growth.

The one piece of the puzzle to our economic growth that we continue to struggle with and work on is housing, especially housing for working families and first-time homeowners. Development costs for a new subdivision have skyrocketed in the last ten (10) years, making it very difficult to get the cost of infrastructure improvements to a level that makes it possible to keep those costs within an acceptable range that limits the impact to homebuying affordability. We are looking at several solutions to this problem, even the possibility of the City developing some building lots and selling them at cost to help homebuilders construct homes within an affordable price range. The City is in the process of purchasing another 49.5 acres of land that joins our Business Park, with the possibility of developing some of that land into residential lots.

All that being said, overall, the State of the City is very good. We are growing, have a very low unemployment rate, and most of the problems we face are good ones related to our growth that many cities wish they had.

Public Safety

Now I would like to give a brief account of the different departments in the City and look at their needs and plans for the coming year. Public safety, including Police, Fire and Animal Control, are all services provided by the City with combined annual budgets of over $2 million dollars. These services are generally non-revenue producing and are funded almost entirely by our general sales tax dollars, other than approximately $200,000 coming from fines and fees collected in our District Court with a large portion of that revenue going towards paying our share of the operational costs of the Court.

The Berryville Police Department has settled into their new office building and under the leadership of Police Chief Robert Bartos, continues to operate as one of the best small town police forces in the State in my opinion. When I talk to other mayors from around the State and hear their horror stories about the lawsuits and internal investigations going on in their police departments, it makes me realize how blessed we are to have such a professional and efficiently operated department.

After eleven (11) years of outstanding leadership, Fire Chief Shannon Chester decided to retire last October, and I want to personally thank him for his service. After reviewing the candidates within the department carefully, I nominated Matt Hunnicutt as his replacement and Matt was sworn in as our new Fire Chief on October 15, 2024. I know Matt will continue the kind of leadership that has made the Berryville Fire Department the outstanding department that it is. Berryville has always been blessed with great leadership in our fire department, but the real key to their success has been the many volunteers who check their egos at the door and work selflessly with the Chief to make the department a truly great asset for our town. A recent example is their response to a fire at the Berryville Tyson Foods plant that could have been devastating for Berryville had it not been for the exemplary response from the Berryville Fire Department, along with the assistance of the departments from Eureka Springs, Green Forest, Oak Grove and others who showed up to help. A review board consisting of retired fire chiefs from around the State recently met with our department to review our response to the fire. Their conclusion was that we did everything according to standard firefighting procedures based upon the circumstances and information available at the time, that it was a great job done by all our local fire departments, and that it kept the fire from becoming much worse than it could have been.

Parks & Recreation

Berryville Parks are one of my favorite things the City offers to our citizens. With the hiring of Jamie Hussey in late 2023, we are beginning to see the potential our park system can become. Jamie has done a great job in assembling a team that continues to provide more recreational opportunities for our citizens to enjoy both indoors and out. This past year, we have finished a significant upgrade to our Pool Park, including new playground equipment and new pickleball courts. Numerous new programs and a renewed focus on the revenue that our parks can generate has approximately doubled our parks revenue and has provided many new opportunities and programs that have significantly increased the number of people using our parks. In the coming year, we are hoping to add an outdoor workout area to our Freeman Ave Soccer Complex and build trails that will connect our Community Center to the Berry Spring Park we recently restored. This will provide a wonderful trail loop that people can use when exercising or just enjoying an outdoor walk with their family.

Public Works Department (Water, Sewer & Streets)

Our Public Works Department has had a busy year maintaining and improving our water, sewer and street systems. We have recently completed the painting and complete rehabilitation of the 2-million gallon Hailey Road Water Storage Tank. The project was completed, and the tank was brought back online to operational status under the engineer’s estimated budget, which is a rare thing in my time as Mayor. The Water Department also moved its business office to the old police station next to City Hall last year. This move has made it much easier for our customers through the addition of a drive-thru window and the elimination of stairs to enter the building.

This year we will be required to conduct a State-mandated study of our water and sewer rates. Act 605 of 2021 and Act 545 of 2023 were passed as a result of many smaller water systems not setting their rates high enough to provide the funds necessary for major repairs to their facilities. We do anticipate a rate increase since we will be required to meet the necessary income and reserve fund levels that the study determines we need. Hopefully it will not be a pill that is too tough to swallow.

Streets as always are our biggest challenge to maintain and improve since, unlike water and sewer, the street system does not generate its own revenue, and I will be the first to admit we haven’t kept up with the necessary maintenance to our streets as good as I would like. Therefore, this is the main reason we will be asking the voters to extend our ½% sales tax out until 2045 instead of expiring as of 2030 in order to finance a new bond issue. There is no doubt that if we don’t get additional funds for our streets, we are going to fall farther behind on the critical maintenance and upgrades to our street system. The two options we had were to extend the existing ½% sales tax so we can issue these new bonds to begin work now or pass an additional ½% sales tax just for street funding and wait until those funds build up enough to make a significant difference. This will allow us to keep our existing sales tax rate intact, which keeps our sales tax at a lower rate than the other cities in Carroll County and near or below other cities in Northwest Arkansas. I would like to remind everyone that the City of Berryville still does not assess any city property taxes other than the voluntary cemetery tax. We also don’t receive anything from the County sales tax because of the particular statute under which it was adopted. In my opinion, the Berryville City Council has done an excellent job of keeping the overall tax burden on our citizens at one of the lowest in this part of the State. The extension of this sales tax will allow us to make major improvements to our streets and fund other projects in Berryville, while also keeping our sales tax at the current rate.

This proposed sales tax extension and bond issue will also allow smaller portions of the bond issue to provide funds to purchase equipment and vehicles necessary for our fire and police departments, fund improvements and additions within our parks system, and provide funds for much needed maintenance, repairs and extensions to our water and sewer systems. We hope the voters will see the value in this plan and support the extension of the tax and the bond issue when the election occurs probably in May.

Closing Statement: Some of the other exciting things that have taken place in Berryville in the last year include: 1) our first ever film festival thanks to the hard work and energetic enthusiasm of Ms. Julia Borkowski, 2) new digital advertising signs for our Business Park and Community Center, 3) a new much-needed roof on the Saunders Museum, 4) a display of items from the Saunders Museum at the State Capitol building in Little Rock for several months, 5) a nearly complete new pavilion at the Berryville Memorial Park Cemetery, and 6) the $1 land lease to the Mennonite Disaster Service Group in our Business Park for an official home for their emergency response vehicles and equipment. All these projects and many others in Berryville show we are a growing vibrant community with endless possibilities for our future.

I would like to end by thanking the citizens of Berryville for giving me the honor to serve as their Mayor and the City Council for all their hard work to make me look like I know what I’m doing.