The Siloam Springs Rodeo will not be moving locations -- at least not at this time.
City administrator Phillip Patterson addressed the topic during his comments at the end of the board of director's meeting on Feb. 22. When Patterson was going through the 2017 budget with the board back in 2016, he said it "was time to make a decision on the rodeo grounds ... we needed to stop kicking the can down the road as it relates to this project."
That resulted in $800,000 added to the budget to relocate the rodeo grounds from its current home off Cheri Whitlock Drive to property along Arkansas Highway 59 south of Siloam Springs. Issues such as needing more fill dirt than expected at the new site and not being able to move bleachers from Glenn W. Black Stadium as originally planned pushed the estimated cost of the project up to $1.4 million.
"So here we are in 2018 and we're still having a difficult time trying to address this," Patterson said. "There's no question in my mind that relocating the rodeo grounds is in the best interest of the city. It's in the best interest of the riding club and in the best interest of the community as a whole, but at this time, I can't find a clear, financially feasible path to move forward to relocate the rodeo grounds.
"I can't recommend that we move forward with this project. But at the same time, I can't recommend that we stop trying to move forward on this project, which makes me feel like we're kicking the can down the road again."
A portion of the funding was expected to come from selling part of the property where the current rodeo grounds are located to the Siloam Springs School District. A price of just under $400,000 for 11 of the 16 acres was negotiated with the school district. The remaining five acres could be sold at a later date and is expected to fetch more money per acre because it could be used for commercial purposes.
Because of the higher cost of relocating the rodeo grounds, the city also does not have to move forward with its sale of the land to the school, which reportedly planned to use the property to expand its athletic facilities.
To put it simply combining all of the factors involved, the numbers for a $1.4 million project did not add up.
"If we sell land to the school at the previously negotiated price, that's just under $400,000, so the city's got over a million dollars in this project," Patterson said. "Three or four years from now, if you sell the remaining five acres, you might be able to get another $400,000 or $500,000 out of that, so you still have over $500,000 into the project.
"I just can't find a fiscal way to make the recommendation to move forward."
Members of the riding club were present at the meeting and a strong contingent from the club were represented at a previous meeting when the project was discussed. In its mind, it would have been happy with either scenario playing out.
"We are satisfied with where we're at," riding club board member Lee Reed said after the meeting. "We have some repairs we need to do and it's sort of put us in limbo because we couldn't go ahead and spend money there if we were going to jump up and move.
"This kind of lets us go ahead and start some repairs to get ready for this year's rodeo."
Moreover, moving the rodeo grounds may have caused issues when participants came to town from out of state. This year's 60th annual Siloam Springs Rodeo is scheduled for June 14-16.
"People know where we're at and that's a big thing," Reed said. "When you change locations, you have a lot of people running here and then having to run there because not everybody from west Texas knows that we moved the rodeo grounds. And we have players from all over.
"So I'm not disappointed with the outcome, but some on the board may be."
Patterson apologized to the riding club and said its "cooperation was greatly appreciated" throughout the process. He also said he was disappointed because he believed the riding club deserved an answer about the fate of the rodeo grounds.
Director Amy Smith lamented about the fact that plans for the new rodeo grounds only included about half of the seating of the current rodeo's 2,200-seat capacity during a past meeting. The rodeo usually sells out on two of the three nights each year.
"We also don't want to shortchange the rodeo club," Smith said. "We don't want to do an impoverished version of what they have.
"I've bought four lottery tickets and I haven't won anything yet, so I'm trying."
Patterson said city staff will take the additional time to explore funding alternatives. Staff had looked at options on a regional and statewide level, but the feedback about receiving that funding was "minuscule at best."
"I'm asking for basically another year," Patterson said. "But I want to make a promise that we're not going to sit back and wait another year. We're going to immediately go to work and see what other options are out there from a national standpoint."
General News on 02/24/2018