Downtown Fort Smith food truck rules not as open as city directors wanted

Interested downtown food truck vendors hoping for help on utilities from the city of Fort Smith will have to wait indefinitely after Tuesday night’s (June 21) meeting of the city’s Board of Directors. Also Tuesday, City Administrator Carl Geffken provided a timeline for filling key vacancies in the city’s department personnel.

An ordinance approved on June 7 containing a “self-contained” stipulation will remain, forcing vendors to provide their own electricity and water services despite Directors’ preference for a less restrictive policy.

Fort Smith Development Services Director Wally Bailey advised that with vendors being located in the street outside of Cisterna Park instead of in it, “it’s a different set of legal issues.”

“The streets are there for the purposes of providing for the uses of a street as indicated by state law,” Bailey explained. “If we include temporary service poles and water spigots and things like that, that’s outside the legal parameters of a street. Because this is in the street and not the park, we have concern about doing that. Basically you’re closing the street and using it for the purposes of a public building instead of how it was legally intended.”

Directors understood the response, but advised designating a specific location for a possible mobile food park in the future. In addition to holding the self-contained stipulation in place, the amendment approved on Tuesday added self-contained food concession trailer vendors to the list of eligible applicants and removed a potentially restrictive paragraph that required vendors to operate for at least three hours on two consecutive days in order to keep their space. Bailey said one interested vendor had voiced concerns over it, and that the concern “was reasonable.”

The allocated space outside of Cisterna Park can host a maximum of six self-contained food trucks or concession trailers. Bailey said one vendor has already signed up and that a second has shown interest.

“With these amendments, we expect one or two more,” he added.

HIRING TIMETABLE
At the close of Tuesday’s meeting, Administrator Geffken provided an update and a rough timetable for the hiring of four key positions — Utilities Director, Human Resources Director, Police Chief, and Fire Chief.

Geffken said postings for Utilities, HR, and Police Chief had been reviewed and signed off on by himself and Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman, and would be posted soon. Also, he said, interviews for Fire Chief begin Thursday. When asked about how long it would take to fill the positions, Geffken said, “The normal process will take about three months, preferably less.”

He continued: “The point is, I’ve never wanted to rush into these important positions by just putting in a warm body. Just having a warm body is way worse than waiting on the right candidate.”

Geffken knows firsthand how long it can take to fill these high-profile positions. He threw his hat in the ring for the City Administrator position in early 2016 and received the nod in April with his first day on the job May 9. That was after former City Administrator Ray Gosack stepped down in July 2015.

He inherited an exodus of department heads that included Fort Smith Fire Chief Mike Richards, who announced his intent to retire in September 2015 after 33 years with the department.

That announcement was followed by Human Resources Director Richard Jones stepping down in October after 14 years of service. Then in March 2016, former Fort Smith Police Chief Kevin Lindsey announced his resignation, effective immediately, over racially charged comments related to the department’s unusually low number of African-American police officers. (The city has not hired a black police officer since 1995 and employs less than 3% in spite of the demographic’s 9% representation in population.)

Finally, Utilities Director Steve Parke, who endured significant scrutiny from the Board over the city’s $480 million consent decree for violations of the Clean Water Act, retired on April 1, 2016.