City to seek funds for new digital billboard from El Dorado Works funds

The El Dorado Works Board will consider a funding request to replace one of the city's digital marquees when the group convenes for a regular meeting at 5:15 p.m. today in the Council Chamber of City Hall.

The city's digital sign near the El Dorado Municipal Auditorium went out sometime ago and cannot be repaired.

The sign is one of two that were purchased 10 years ago as part of a funding package that was covered by the former El Dorado Forward one-cent, sales tax initiative.

Much like the current El Dorado Works tax, the one-cent El Dorado Forward sales tax was dedicated to economic development projects in the city.

The tax expired in 2015 after eight years and was followed up with the El Dorado Works tax, a 10-year tax that will sunset in 2025.

The El Dorado Works tax went into effect Oct. 1 the same year and was expanded to include municipal infrastructure and quality-of-life projects.

A task force that was formed in the early 2010s to improve the city's gateways and to establish a wayfinding system in the city -- in conjunction with the advent of the Murphy Arts District, which opened in 2017 -- drafted a plan and presented a funding request to the former El Dorado Economic Development Board, which oversaw the El Dorado Forward tax.

The project included two digital marquees -- the other marquee is at the El Dorado Conference Center --; four monument signs that are set up at city entrances on the north, south, east and west sides of town; and at least 100 wayfinding signs.

During an El Dorado Water and Public Works Board meeting earlier this month, Robert Edmonds, director of public works, sought guidance from the board about how to proceed with and fund the project.

Edmonds said the cost of a new sign is $87,000 and a $70,000 deposit is required.

Council Member and city Finance Committee Chairman Vance Williamson, reminded Edmonds that the group previously agreed to reach out to the EWB to possibly tap into remaining funds from the 2012 gateway projects.

Each of the components that were included in the 2012 funding package came in under budget.

"I know there's over a million dollars still in that fund, so I would just get with (Greg Downum, EWB chairman)," Williamson advised.

Edmonds requested that the item be placed on the EWB agenda for today.

The wayfinding signs were not installed due to complaints about the "garish, tacky colors."

Thirty-one of the sings will be repainted, fit with new letters and installed in anticipation of the Arkansas Governor's Conference on Tourism, which will be held in El Dorado in February.

In August, a local committee who is working with the state to coordinate the conference requested $11,194.50 from the EWB to improve the 31 signs.

Board members agreed to pull the money from the remaining El Dorado Forward budget.

The EWB recommended the funding request to the El Dorado City Council, who approved the funds in September.

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