FAYETTEVILLE — The third mayor’s town hall meeting of 2011 gave residents an opportunity to ask questions and voice concerns about city goings-on Monday.
More than 50 people attended the meeting at St. James Missionary Baptist Church.
After hearing staff reports on recent emergency assistance in Joplin, Mo., city finances, street and trail construction and summer Parks and Recreation events, nine members of the public took the microphone to address Mayor Lioneld Jordan.
More than half of them focused on a plan for a temporary access road through the lawn east of Old Main at the University of Arkansas. According to university officials, the road would facilitate a number of construction projects on campus during a two-year period and would require minimal excavation. All damage would be repaired after construction is complete, but it would mean tearing down and rebuilding a stone wall along Arkansas Avenue and finding a route for construction vehicles to access campus.
So far, the proposal has been to run vehicles along Lafayette Street to the east. The university also has asked the city to limit parking on the north side of Lafayette during daytime hours.
“We don’t know what we can do, but we’d like to prevent that from happening,” said Evelyn Stilwell, who spoke against the access road Monday. “We think that’s a very special place that shouldn’t be destroyed in that way.”
Ward 2 resident Tom Kennedy acknowledged the access road would not be under city jurisdiction. But, he added, “It seems to me like there ought to be some way to put pressure on the university to alter its plan and come in from some other direction.”
Jordan said parking on Lafayette is something that would be a city decision, and he said Chris Brown, city engineer, is looking at how planned repairs to a bridge on Lafayette might conflict with the university’s construction timeline. The mayor did not give residents an indication, however, of what city officials plan to do in that regard.
Other speakers Monday addressed city emergency preparedness plans (residents can sign up for advance text message and email warnings at www.accessfayetteville.org) and drainage complaints as a result of recent flooding (the city’s Transportation Services Division is planning to reassign 18 workers to focus solely on drainage issues this year) along with other issues.
Two more town hall meetings — in Ward 3 and Ward 4 — are planned for later this year. Dates for those meetings have not been finalized.