West Memphis council approves ordinance creating WM Connect public-transportation department

The West Memphis City Council on a final reading approved an ordinance creating a transportation department and establishing WM Connect as the city's public-transit service. City Attorney Stevenson read the ordinance and the council voted to suspend the rules and place the measure on its final reading before taking the roll-call vote. Mayor McClendon announced the ordinance number as 2738 after the vote and said the ordinance passed.

The ordinance would authorize implementation, operations, funding and oversight for the new department, as read by the city attorney. Council discussion on the measure was brief at the final-reading stage; no substantive amendments were offered at the time of final passage. During the second-reading procedural step earlier in the meeting, council members had already debated and amended elements of the ordinance.

City Attorney Stevenson presented the ordinance language on the record and the mayor called for the clerk to take the roll. The recorded roll-call responses as read during the meeting produced the council president's stated tally that resulted in passage. The clerk recorded the ordinance number as 2738 after the vote.

The action now directs city staff and the new department's implementing officials to proceed with the administrative steps necessary to stand up WM Connect. The council did not set in the meeting a specific implementation timeline or funding appropriation in the final-reading exchange; those details either were addressed in prior sessions or will be handled through later administrative or budget actions.

The council adjourned its legislative business and moved on to other agenda items.