The Bella Vista City Council voted unanimously in favor of an intranasal naloxone policy for the Bella Vista Police Department during its regular meeting Monday, March 26.
"It is an opioid antagonist that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose or accidental fentanyl exposure," mayor Peter Christie said.
The department has already received 40 units of the drug at no charge through the Arkansas Naloxone Emergency Response Project, a project funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield to provide training and medical supplies to police agencies.
One officer has been trained and will pass that training on to other officers once this policy goes into effect, Christie said. The Bella Vista Police Department will be among the first few departments to carry the drug, he said.
It will take roughly three weeks, Christie said, for officers to be trained and given their naloxone kits.
The council also voted in favor of using designated funds to purchase computers and car seats for the police department.
The designated funds came from donations and grant revenue and the expenditures totaled $2,907.10 for the child car seats and $26,200 for the computer units.
Mayor Christie said that the police department gives out car seats as a courtesy.
Council member James Wozniak said the department is also willing to loan them out, so residents with visiting grandchildren, for instance, can have a seat while the children are around.
"It's a pretty good deal," he said. "We've always had a source for the car seats... but that's dried up."
Additionally, the council revisited accessory buildings and voted unanimously to adopt the planning commission's recommended amendments to the ordinance, which saw its second reading and will go to third and final during the next regular meeting Monday, April 23.
With these adjustments to the legislation, buildings would need to be placed behind the front plane of the house using a definition in the city's fencing ordinance, which is based on the distance from the building's corners to the road to determine the setbacks for either side of the property.
Height would be limited to 25 feet overall in this proposal, and sidewalls are limited to 15 feet in height.
Wozniak said that, provided other council members are willing, he would like to consider another change to the proposal.
"It currently states that if you have an accessory building on the plot, you can't put one on the adjoining lot and vice versa," he said.
He spoke with one resident, he said, who owns the lot next to his or her home, and cannot build a building on it because there is already a shed on the lot with the house.
Council member Linda Lloyd said this is not an uncommon scenario. Many residents, she said, have a small shed that will prevent them from building another structure on an adjoining lot.
Council member Doug Fowler said that he agreed this is something worth exploring. He's interested in hearing feedback from the public, he said, and he can be reached via email at [email protected].
Moreover, he said, this already occurred on properties before this regulation went into place.
"My opinion on that is the genie's already out of the bottle on that one anyway," Fowler said.
The council also approved the purchase of new police vehicles and hiring a contractor for seasonal right-of-way mowing.
General News on 03/28/2018