February - From the Mayor's Desk

Casey's Gas Station

The Casey’s gas station is still in the works. It goes out for bids to contractors and work is to start in the spring.

Dead Trees

I have received permits from the Corp of Engineers for over 30 trees that were dead between Danuser Park and Dam Site Park. I had our Water Dept. and Street Dept., also myself, cutting and chippings the trees. We have three (3) large trees yet to remove between Danuser and Dam Site Parks that have to be taken down along with a large tree on the Northwest corner of Martha and Browns Beach Road that have power lines close by and it will have to be done by tree service professionals who have a valid business license and valid insurance, so the city is requesting bids to be submitted on these four (4) trees.

Snow Removal

During the last snowstorm, mother nature did us no favors by giving us 1 inch of snow on Saturday, then sleet and freezing rain late Saturday, then dumped 6 to 8 inches of snow on top of that, and it did not stop until 1O am on Sunday. The city has only 3 plows and 3 plow operators, counting myself as the mayor. I did have an additional new employee come out to be trained on snow removal when we started at 6:30 am on Sunday. The street supervisor and I worked plowing streets until 5 pm on Sunday. We did not get to every street in town on Sunday or again on Monday due to the steepness of the street. I did contact most of those I could who lived on those streets and advised them if they needed anything I would have the Fire or Police Dept. deliver it to them. I personally was not happy with the overall plowing of the streets, and we have discussed how we can improve. We ordered chains for the snowplow vehicles, for during the Sunday plow, we all got stuck or slid off into the ditch several times each, having to spend time pulling each other out.

Wood Pile Clean-up

The Fire Chief did give me the OK to burn the wood pile on the ALS donated property while there was a fresh snow fall on the ground. According to our Ordinance, it had to be under 24-7 watch while still burning. I spent the night from 4 pm to the next morning pushing the wood pile together with the backhoe until relieved by a city worker at 8 am. It was later extinguished by the fire dept. at 3:30 pm.

ALS Building

We also cleaned up around the ALS main building and scraped out the metals on 2-13-2026, that money was turned over to the City treasurer at 10 am, we received $257.85 for the steel and tin brought to Scrap Daddy's on Hwy 5 in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Once we get items inside the ALS main building inventoried, the City will have a sale on all items. The sale date will be determined and put on the website and City Facebook.

The Bull Shoals Bugle Corrections

I did notice that "The Bull Shoals Bugle" newsletter put out and edited by Gary Heimbach had numerous mistakes printed in it.

Under City News:

1.  The owner of the Village Mart did not file another lawsuit he just had some additions to the old suit.

2.  Marion County Quorum Court is not proposing a 1.25 % tax increase, but they are bringing to the ballot on March 3rd, 2026, to continue a .5 % sales tax to build a County Community Center to be located on the south side of Yellville by Hwy 14 and 235. They also have on the ballot a .25% sales tax increase that will help pay for the operating cost for this Center. This .25% ballot was written in such a way that the County can use this .25% sales tax not only for the operation of the center but can be used anywhere in the County Government if the building of the Center does not pass.

In the EDITORIAL:

1.   In Resolution 2025-R-27 was the final budget for upcoming year 2026, which was passed by City Council in December 2025. Why was there no mention of that under interim Mayor Duss. She was to present a working 2025 budget to the City Council by December 1st, 2024, per Arkansas State Statute. Interim Mayor Duss never submitted a 2025 budget, "This is a fact". I took office on December 9th, 2024 and continually requested information on department submitted budgets so I could give the City Council a budget for 2025. The one City employee that could give me this information refused to do so, that being Tina Bailey who had held the Recorders job, the Treasurers job, and the City Clerks job, (but a city of the second class which the City of Bull Shoals is, can NOT have a City Clerk). I, as mayor, did my best to get a 2025 budget to the City Council so they could vote on it by state statute before February 1st ,2025. Of course, there would be mistakes and that is why I made a budget committee to come up with a more precise line-item budget. In that 2025 budget, there was a revenue of $21,000 for the Police Dept., which was a grant that was received in 2023, and should not have been on the 2025 budget. The committee was able to correct that, and that is why it just disappeared.

2.    When Ms. Snow wanted to know why there was no date written in on resolution 2025-R-27, which was the passing of the 2026 budget. The answer is easy. A Resolution does not have to be posted in the required five locations in the city, BUT we did post it on the City website (cityofbullshoals.gov) in December 2025. If you haven't noticed that this administration has been putting a lot of information on the City website which has NOT been done in the past.

3.    The mayor has the right to make up committees that will help aid the City and provide more eyes on the prize, which will result in far more transparency. I placed individuals on my City Budget Committee, which consisted of 6 Alderpersons, Mayor, Interim Treasurer, and 3 City of Bull Shoals Citizens back on January 2, 2025. That committee was moving slower than I expected. So, I restructured that committee on 9-3-2025 placing 4 Alderpersons, Mayor, City Treasurer, and 3 City of Bull Shoals Citizens on that committee, and they were able to come up with a reasonable budget on actual numbers received on past years (revenue and expenditures). Remember, a budget is not exact science. Life has unexpected costs that hit even a city.

4.   When Leslie Snow says that there are Ghost accounts or $0.01 placeholders, my answer to that is the new software CSA will not let you have a line item of $0.00. To keep that line item, it must show 1 cent in it temporarily.

5.   In summary, if "The Bull Shoals Bugle" wants to continue to print untruths in its newsletter, the citizens of Bull Shoals deserve better and should expect and demand nothing less than the highest standard of journalism and get the facts correct.

Since I have been your Mayor, I have received several complaints from our citizens on many subjects. Depending on what the complaint, is I will direct those complaints to the appropriate department to be corrected. This can be anywhere from barbed wire fence being used next to resident property to other Planning and Zoning violations to street repairs or culverts plugged.

In July of 2025, I received 2 citizen complaints on a fence in Woodstone Subdivision stating that it was in violation of the City Ordinance. Like any other complaint, I checked it out and I took 4 photos while on the neighbor's property this fence butted up to. I took measurements of the height of the fence from the ground. I did find that it was in violation of 3 sections of the city building code, and that the building permit that was filed with the city in 2018 was never inspected or signed off by a building official. I sent a letter to the owners of said property and a copy of this letter to the Building Inspector and to the Planning and Zoning Commission stating the violations and that this fence needed to comply with our codes.

In October 2025, the owner of the above violation filed a complaint on the fence I had in the middle of my yard and a display wall I had next to the road. The complainant stated that the structure or ugly side was facing out towards the public. Once I was notified by the building inspector that my fence was in violation, I fixed both fences covering the structure with additional 6-foot cedar planks. I covered the structure with a black tarp on the display wall located at the road but apparently that was not good enough for the complainant even though the inspector and P & Z said it was. I have corrected that fence by placing 6-foot cedar planks on the roadside of this wall covering the structure up making my fence now in compliance of the city fence ordinance.

This original complainant, according to public records (Steve Duss), lives a½ mile from my house and he has filed other complaints in the City on other properties; those complaints were filed during this administration expecting us to get them corrected, which we did, yet these complaints he filed were also in violation when his wife was the interim mayor for Bull Shoals.

I fixed my fence, and since his wife was a former Planning and Zoning member and an Interim Mayor for the City of Bull Shoals, the Ordinance they are violating do not apply to them, for they had their lawyer send a letter to cease and desist from any further action to be taken by the City. This is a clear and obvious retaliation and the highest form of hypocrisy.

So, I must ask, should there be consequences when someone violates our City Ordinances?

Or, do we, as a City, just let everyone do whatever they want to do? My firm belief is that we follow our ordinances, and everyone is treated the same way. If majority of people do not like the ordinance, then we change the ordinance. Otherwise we do our job and enforce the ordinance violators.

My fence was put up back in 2006 when I got my permit and was inspected by the inspector at the time (who has since passed away). I, nor the City, never had a complaint filed on my fence until Steve Duss filed one on my fence in October 2025, 19 years later. Steve Duss's fence that was given a permit and built in 2018, was never inspected nor signed off by the City Building Inspector, which the permit that was filed at the Marion County Court House proves. For your information, two (2) complaints were filed on Steve Duss's fence 3 months before he filed a complaint on my fence. In my opinion, that's being retaliatory.

In the October 2022 City Council meeting minutes, Steve Duss wanted to know during citizens' comments from Tina Bailey on how much time was spent answering FOIA requests, and Ms. Bailey stated that it has averaged about 10 hours per week with about 200 requests made (costing approximately $14- $17 per hour). I find this ironic and disturbing at the same time. For the Duss and Pucci, Bull Shoals Citizens, while having every right to submit FOIA's, have been submitting constant FOIA's. Some ask for the same information repeatedly and this is taking time away from the City's regular office duties, which is costing taxpayers dollars to be spent elsewhere. This administration has an open-door policy, and we are not trying to hide anything we are doing here. We are trying to fix the previous administration's lack of oversight and accountability.

I recently had my grant committee meet with Tina Cole from the Northwest Arkansas Economical Development District out of Harrison. I asked Ms. Cole to meet with us so we can work together on possible future grants we can apply for, and how to do so. With all the Federal cutbacks and state issues out there, money has gotten a lot tighter. We compete against 50 other States. Arkansas has 72 counties, and over 400 cities who are also applying for grant money.

This has been a lengthy informative letter "From The Mayors Desk" and I'm sure I have more to cover. The City Water, Sewer, Trash Bill has increased on last month's bill due to where the City buys its water from went up $.50 cents per 1,000 gallons we buy. Every year the bill is increased by City Ordinance to go up at least 2% or whatever the CPI is (whichever is greater) and the CPI was 2.8%. The City Council just passed an Ordinance last month to add $2.00 to the $5.00 water maintenance fee and a $3.00 maintenance fee for the sewer. This money will be placed into a depreciation account for both departments to help with repair cost to our systems that are over 50 years old. With that said, the minimum water, sewer, and trash bill will now be $79.89 for residential service. Remember this bill is for Three (3) services which breaks it down to approximately $27.00 per service which includes tax.

All the above information is public record at City Hall.

We want this City to prosper.

Until next time. Have a Blessed Day,

Mayor Bill Stahlman