Special Bd. of Aldermen — 08/06/2019 Page 25
Alderman Lopez
Maybe some of the more experienced Board Members or the Mayor could tell me but | can’t actually think of
something that the City owns in terms of entertainment value which isn’t typically better managed by somebody
like I’m thinking of Holman Stadium. On the other hand I’m thinking of the Arts & Sciences Building which we
tried to run and didn’t do so great. So | feel like if we have somebody who is leasing it and doing major service
to the community both financially in terms of donating to non-profits, but running it effectively in the way that it is
supposed to run, I’m in favor of supporting them too. If all they are asking is the ability to improve the facility to
the extent that we can save money on electricity for it.
Alderman Dowd
Question for whoever wants to grab it. | am going to assume we will need legislation and if so, has it been
drafted yet and does it need a sponsor and how quickly can we get it in the pipeline, Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Donchess
| think it is simple legislation that could be prepared for the meeting of August 13°".
Mr. Weeks If | may Mayor, just to your question about timeline and thank you so much Mr. Hall and the Board.
Just very briefly economies of scale certainly do count. The 8.8 cent PPA rate is not something that we would
be able to offer and cover our cost or the investor’s cost without the participation of Conway Arena at a 400
kilowatt, so 4 times roughly the size of the individual projects currently in play for the City. So in terms of
timeline we are blessed to have a lot of demand particularly with the sun setting of the tax credit. So with James
and the team are doing a lot of juggling of priorities, we want very much to complete this this year but we are
pushing up toward some major procurements that we need to make of panels and racking etcetera and we
cannot make those major procurements until we have this signed contract.
We understand that there is a process with the Board of Aldermen but we hope very much as we have relayed
to members of the staff here that that can be fully finalized and signed in the month of August so that we can
stay on track for a fall installation.
Alderman Dowd
Can we have the presentation added to the minutes of this meeting so that the people that aren’t here tonight
can have access to it?
Mr. Weeks We would be pleased to share it.
President Wilshire
Thank you so much.
