Board to hold final meeting of 2018

The city board will hold its final meeting of the year on Tuesday.

This will also be the last meeting for Ward 1 Director Steve Beers, Ward 3 Director Frank Johnson and Ward 4 Director Amy Smith, who are being replaced on Jan. 1 by newly-elected directors Mindy Hunt, Marla Sappington and Lesa Brosch, respectively. It will be held at the Siloam Springs Public Library and is likely to be brief, with two agenda items requiring board approval.

One of which will be to consider approving a guaranteed maximum price for renovations that are planned for Fire Station No. 2. The board approved CR Crawford Construction to oversee the project on April 17 and final designs for the project were presented to the board during the Oct. 2 meeting, according to a city staff report. The guaranteed maximum price that will be under consideration is $1,608,393, which includes construction costs (with a $28,500 contingency), the construction manager fee, bond, taxes and insurance.

The figure was determined by CR Crawford after advertising bids to different firms within their network, and it will likely fall within the fire department's budget for 2018 which allotted $1.75 million for the project, the staff report states. Additional expenses for the project that will increase its total price to $1.75 million include engineering and architectural fees.

If the contingency is used, the project's total cost is estimated to exceed the budgeted amount by $9,000, which would be paid for using the fire department's portion of the one-cent sales tax fund balance, the staff report states. The second item for the board's consideration is the reappointment of Jim Krall to serve on the Regional Airport Authority's Board of Directors.

Krall is one of two directors on the board who represents Siloam Springs and his term expires on Dec. 31 of this year. Appointments to this board last for six years and the item is rather routine, but is needed to ensure that Siloam Springs stays represented on it.

The meeting will be held at the regular time of 6:30 p.m. and unlike regular board meetings, it will not be recorded and uploaded to the city website. The Siloam Springs Public Library is located at 205 E. Jefferson St. for those interested in attending.