# January 14 2025 Conway City Council Meeting The minutes and full agenda packet of the City of Conway City Council meeting at which **Ordinance O-25-09** was passed unanimously — the formal Council action authorizing the Conway PD Flock procurement. Two raw files together document this meeting: the 4-page minutes (`01.14.2025 COUNCIL MTG.pdf`) and the 40-page agenda packet (`January 14 2025 City Council Agenda.pdf`). Both are text-layer PDFs and extracted cleanly. The agenda packet contains the ordinance texts presented at the meeting. ## What's inside **The minutes** record a regular session at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, in City Council Chambers. Present and acting: Councilmen Hawkins, Grimes, Spurgers, Ledbetter, Hawks, Jones, and Councilwomen Mehl and Isby; Mayor Bart Castleberry; City Clerk Denise Hurd; City Attorney Charles Finkenbinder. The meeting opened with two public hearings on Conway Corporation electric-revenue and water-revenue bond ordinances, followed by ordinances under the Economic Development, Community Development, Public Service, and Public Safety committees. **The agenda packet** (40 pages) contains the meeting agenda and the underlying ordinance and resolution texts the Council voted on, including: - The two Conway Corporation bond ordinances (electric revenue, water revenue). - The 2025 organizational rules and procedures of the City Council (R-25-01). - Three Community Development ordinances on airport CIP funding (O-25-02), building-permit fees (O-25-03), and the Linn settlement (O-25-04). - A rezoning ordinance for 931 Faulkner Street (O-25-05). - Two Public Service ordinances on a natural-landscaping habitat permit (O-25-06) and Conway Expo Center rates (O-25-07). - **Three Public Safety items**: disposal of two seized vehicles (E-1); appropriating $10,000 of asset-forfeiture funds for the S7 Tactical training-range rental (**O-25-08**); and **waiving competitive bid and appropriating $180,000 of asset-forfeiture funds for the Flock LPR system (O-25-09)**. ## The Flock LPR item (E-3 / O-25-09) The minutes record item E-3 as follows: > 3. Ordinance to waive the competitive bid process and purchase LPR equipment for the Conway Police Department. O-25-09 > > Mayor Castleberry presented Item E3 to the Council. Councilman Ledbetter made a motion to adopt the Ordinance and Councilwoman Mehl seconded it. The Clerk called the roll with the following voting "Aye": Councilman Hawkins, Councilman Ledbetter, Councilman Jones, Councilman Grimes, Councilman Spurgers, Councilman Hawks, Councilwoman Isby, and Councilwoman Mehl. The Ordinance passed 8-0. The minutes do not record discussion of the bid waiver or the sole-source justification; only the motion, the second, the roll-call vote, and the passage. The agenda packet's underlying text of E-3 / O-25-09 is the same text recorded as the executed ordinance (see [[Ordinance O-25-09 — LPR Bid Waiver and Asset Forfeiture Appropriation]]). The minutes also record that **Mayor Castleberry presented Item E3** — not Chief Harris, who presented Items E-1 (seized-asset disposal) and E-2 (O-25-08, the asset-forfeiture range-rental ordinance). The minutes do not state who, on the Department side, would have presented the LPR ordinance had a department head presented it. ## The asset-forfeiture context: O-25-08 and O-25-09 The same evening, the Council passed two asset-forfeiture-appropriation ordinances back to back: **O-25-08** (Item E-2) appropriating $10,000 of asset-forfeiture funds for the rental of the S7 Tactical training-range facility, and **O-25-09** (Item E-3) appropriating $180,000 of asset-forfeiture funds for the Flock LPR purchase. Both ordinances cite the same boilerplate third whereas — that "money in the Conway Police Department Asset Forfeiture account is allowed, by law, to be used for such purposes as these." The pair is documented here as a matter of record; the wiki does not adjudicate whether asset-forfeiture appropriation by ordinance per spend is a routine Conway practice. ## The "waive three readings" memo The agenda packet's page 5 carries a memo headed "From: Felicia Rogers / To: Mayor Bart Castleberry / Date: December 6th, 2024 / Re: December 10th, 2024 City Council Agenda," listing the ordinances on the meeting agenda for which the Council was to waive the three statutory readings. The memo enumerates the ordinances by item number — B-2 (electric bonds), C-4 (airport CIP), C-5 (permit fees), C-6 (Linn settlement), C-7 (Faulkner Street rezoning), D-1 (natural landscaping), D-2 (Expo Center rates), E-2 (O-25-08 asset-forfeiture range rental), E-3 (O-25-09 LPR bid waiver), and E-4 (District Court personnel) — all of which are January 14, 2025 agenda items. *Observation, distinct from the record:* the memo's "December 6th, 2024 / December 10th, 2024 City Council Agenda" date references do not match the enumerated items (which are January 14, 2025 items) and appear to be a clerical artifact of an earlier-meeting template reused for the January packet; the load-bearing facts (O-25-09 passed 2025-01-14, 8-0) are independently anchored in the minutes and the recorded ordinance. ## Key takeaways - **O-25-09 passed 8-0.** The eight Conway aldermen unanimously approved the bid waiver, the $180,000 Flock purchase, and the asset-forfeiture appropriation. The minutes record the vote and no discussion of the sole-source justification. - **The Mayor presented the item; the Chief did not.** Mayor Castleberry presented E-3 (the LPR ordinance) per the minutes. Chief Harris presented E-1 (seized-asset disposal) and E-2 (O-25-08 range rental) at the same meeting. - **O-25-09 was paired with another asset-forfeiture appropriation (O-25-08) the same evening.** Both ordinances appropriate asset-forfeiture funds and cite the same boilerplate authorizing language. - **The agenda packet's "waive three readings" memo is mis-dated.** The memo dates itself to December 6 / December 10, 2024 but enumerates the January 14, 2025 ordinance items. ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Conway City Council]] — the eight aldermen present and voting; the meeting body. - [[Mayor's Office (Conway)]] — Mayor Bart Castleberry chaired; Chief of Staff Felicia T. Rogers authored the memo. - [[Denise Hurd]] — City Clerk/Treasurer; called the roll, took the minutes, and signed the meeting record. - Charles Finkenbinder — City Attorney; present at the meeting. - [[Chris Harris]] — Conway Police Chief; presented Items E-1 and E-2. - [[Conway Police Department]] — beneficiary of items E-1, E-2, E-3. - [[Flock Safety, Inc.]] — the vendor named in O-25-09. ## Concepts invoked - [[Asset-Forfeiture Funding for Surveillance Procurement]] — O-25-08 and O-25-09 are two same-meeting instances. - [[Flock Camera-as-a-Service Procurement Model]] - [[Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR)]] ## Cross-references - [[Ordinance O-25-09 — LPR Bid Waiver and Asset Forfeiture Appropriation]] — the ordinance text and certificate. - [[Flock LPR Cameras Capital Request]] — the underlying general-fund capital ask. - [[Morning - Procurement Pivot Thread]] — the December 2024 procurement pivot that led to this meeting. - [[2025-01 Conway City Council Authorizes Flock Purchase (Ordinance O-25-09)]] — the event page. ## Open questions / follow-ups - The minutes record only the motion, second, and roll-call vote on E-3. Whether the bid waiver or the sole-source justification were discussed is not in the minutes; whether a video recording exists is not addressed by the production. - The agenda-packet "waive three readings" memo's apparent date mismatch is noted above as a clerical artifact; whether the LPR ordinance was originally slated for the December 10, 2024 meeting and held to January 14 is not directly documented.