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Texarkana board approves engineering contract and new prosecutor agreement, amid minutes dispute
Summary
The Texarkana Board of Directors approved a design contract with Spears Engineering Company LLC (design fee $293,063) for 2025 street bond rehabilitation projects and a new legal services agreement for city prosecutor Eric A. Marks at $80,000 per year. Director Harris raised concerns about omissions in the minutes and whether Salazar Lane will remain concrete.
The Texarkana Board of Directors voted to authorize two contracts and adopted meeting minutes after a brief dispute over what the minutes should record.
City attorneys read a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter a contract with Spears Engineering Company LLC to design 2025 street bond rehabilitation projects for Sanderson Lane, Garland Avenue and Senator Street. The resolution states Spears submitted a design fee proposal of $293,063 and notes that bond funds for construction will not be available until June 2026, so the initial engineering fees will be paid from the public works budget.
"Preliminarily, we expect for it to stay concrete," a city representative said when asked whether Salazar Lane would remain a concrete street, but staff also cautioned that design work is still underway and final decisions will occur when the contract returns for board approval.
The board approved the Spears Engineering resolution by roll call vote.
Separately, the board approved a new legal services agreement with city prosecutor Eric A. Marks. The resolution references the board's prior appointment and states the new compensation will be $80,000 per year. City staff told the board the budget can accommodate the increase and noted that fines and forfeitures collected over the last two years totaled about $1,000,000.
Director Harris had earlier asked that the minutes and the engineering item be removed from the consent agenda. Harris questioned why several remarks he said he made at a prior meeting were not reflected in the draft minutes and expressed concern that a resident spoke out of turn at the end of a previous meeting without it being recorded. The city attorney responded that minutes are not verbatim transcripts and are meant to reflect board action rather than a word-for-word record.
After discussion, the board moved, seconded and adopted the minutes of the rescheduled January 20 meeting by roll call, then approved the resolutions authorizing the Spears Engineering contract and the prosecutor agreement.
Votes at a glance: the consent agenda items that remained (contracts for Jackson Street water line work and a Microsoft enterprise licensing agreement) passed by voice vote; roll-call votes were used to adopt the minutes and to approve the Spears Engineering and prosecutor resolutions, each passing with the recorded yes votes of directors present.
