Bond issue to

City council voted Monday night in favor of pursuing a $20 million bond, to be secured by a 1% sales tax, to support building a new police station and court facility, raze and rebuild Fire Station 3 on Glasgow Road and construct a fire training facility.

Mayor Peter Christie said the city has done several projects -- including building Fire Station 4 and purchasing new fire trucks and ambulances -- on cash reserves and with shorter-term loans based on general revenues, but these projects are important for the city's ongoing growth and outside what the city can do with its typical budget.

"We need to manage the growth ... and we are continuing to grow," he said.

That growth will continue to put pressure on the city's infrastructure and safety workers, he said, and it's important to ensure they're up to the task.

It's also a good time to take out loans, he said, because interest rates are fairly low and the city can expect to see interest on these bonds somewhere around 3%.

"This is the time to do it," he said.

The city council cannot approve a sales tax on its own and must take that to the voters, he said. With the resolution passed, the council will need to pass a pair of ordinances -- which will have to go through three readings -- to get the sales tax on the ballot, and the current plan is to have it on the ballot for the March 3, 2020, primary election so that, if approved, the funds will be available that year.

One ordinance will cover the precise verbiage of the ballot issues and the other will call the election, and the ordinances may come before the council as soon as October, he explained.

Christie said the vote will be split, so if voters only wish to vote in favor of one or two projects they can.

The bonds would be roughly $20 million to cover a proposed police and courts facility at $13 to $14 million, as well as a replacement for Fire Station 3 and a fire training facility, each projected to cost roughly $2 million, while leaving an additional $2 million reserve.

The loans are expected to be paid off in 10 years and are structured such that the entirety of the additional tax will go directly toward paying them and will never enter the city's general fund.

Bella Vista's city sales tax currently is 1%, and an additional 1% would bring its sales tax rate in line with Bentonville and some other neighboring cities.

The proposed new 44,000-square-foot police department provides adequate space for current staffing levels along with room to grow, he said. The current station is roughly half the size it should be for today's staff levels with no room for growth, Christie said.

It also lacks prisoner holding space, training space and ADA compliance, he said, and members of the public are welcome to check out the department if they're curious.

Police Chief James Graves said that the proposed building also includes a court facility, and it's fairly standard practice for smaller departments to integrate their court and police facilities or have them fairly close together.

This provides better safety for court staff, he said, and makes it easier to share records between the court and department. It also makes for a shorter trip if officers need to be in court, he added.

"It's obviously more efficient for us," he said.

It also saves leasing a space. Currently, the city leases its courtroom at just under $50,000 per year on a three-year lease.

Christie said the new Fire Station 3 would replace an existing station, which was built in the 1980s and does not fit current standards. Further, it cannot house enough firefighters or equipment to host an ambulance for the Highlands area.

The station keeps a firetruck on hand, which also responds to medical calls, with an ambulance from Station 4 being dispatched as well. The fire and EMS personnel from Station 3 arrive initially and provide care, and the ambulance from Station 4 arrives afterward to transport patients if needed, ensuring Station 3 personnel are not absent for an hour or more transporting that patient.

The new Station 3 would be able to keep an ambulance onhand and house additional firefighters. This would not immediately increase personnel or equipment, Christie said, because the city already has the ambulance it would keep there.

Removing this structure also gives the city another spot for a sand and salt storage facility, he added, which can shorten trips to sand the roads during winter storms.

The proposed fire training facility would include a tower, a training building and a driving training area. Firefighters need to be trained on driving, he said, and practice is difficult without a dedicated space because a lot of area parking lots are not built to withstand these massive trucks, meaning firefighters have to be careful not to tear anything up.

It also means firefighters would train in town, rather than in Springdale, meaning they're closer if anything happens and they need to drop training to respond.

The site, a roughly 10-acre parcel near the intersection of Chelsea Road and Tudor Drive on license from the POA, could eventually become a staffed fire station, he added.

The facility and rebuilt Station 3 could also contribute to lowering the city's Insurance Safety Office, or ISO rating, from a four to a three, which could save residents money on their homeowners insurance, Christie said.

If this proposed ballot issue doesn't pass, Christie said he believes the city will be in a bad position.

"We won't be able to serve the community as it grows," he said.

It will also throw off future plans to expand Fire Station 1 into the current police department, he said.

Michelle Chiocco, District 10 justice of the peace and proprietor of the Carriage Trade, a small shop that sells soaps and provides aesthetician services in Bella Vista, said she's not sure voters will go for a tax increase.

"I think it's going to be a tough sell," she said.

A county special election proposing a 1/8 cent sales tax to build a new court facility was voted down in March of this year. Chiocco said the facility was very necessary.

Whether this could affect her business is a tough question to answer, she said -- people still need to shop, but it's hard to say for sure if this proposed increase could push them to shop elsewhere.

One Bella Vista resident, Mick Mullen, said he moved to Bella Vista in May of this year and sees no issue with increasing taxes to cover emergency services.

"I think they should be taken care of any time we have an opportunity," he said.