Texarkana, Arkansas A&P Commission moves to hire full-time director, targets delinquent taxes

TEXARKANA, Ark. – The Texarkana, Arkansas Advertising and Promotion Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to begin the process of hiring a full-time A&P director, a position commissioners said would bring continuity and accountability to a board that turns over every two years.

Under the plan outlined by City Manager Tyler Richards, the director would be a city employee for payroll and benefits purposes but would report directly to the commission, not to the city manager. The director’s duties would be limited solely to A&P business.

City staff will draft a job description for the commission to review and amend. Vice Chairman Meredith Mills made the motion to move forward, which passed 6-0 on a roll call vote. Once a job description is approved, the city will advertise the position, collect applications and forward them to commissioners, who will conduct interviews and make the final selection. Finance Director Shena Washington suggested a special called meeting to revisit the item before the commission’s October funding meeting.

Danny Hamblett of For All Brand Kind, the agency that handles marketing for the commission under the Experience Texarkana brand, told commissioners the setup is common among Arkansas A&P commissions. Hamblett said Eureka Springs employs a director with administrative staff and pointed to continuity as the biggest benefit, since new commissioners currently receive no formal onboarding.

Richards estimated the position would cost roughly $150,000 a year including benefits. A budget framework he presented last year paired that figure with a $150,000 annual reserve set-aside, a $150,000 grant cap, a $700,000 bond payment and about $350,000 in annual obligations, totaling approximately $1.5 million, roughly what the commission collects each year.

Delinquent taxes headed for enforcement review

Commissioners also voted unanimously to direct the commission’s attorney and city staff to research legal options for enforcing collection of delinquent A&P taxes, a problem members said has lingered for years.

The city recently updated its certificate of occupancy ordinance, and Richards said one option under review is whether the city can lawfully revoke a business’s certificate of occupancy for delinquent A&P taxes. City Attorney Jacob Potter said current revocation authority is based on criminal law and that staff would need to determine whether tax delinquency could legally be added.

“They’re benefiting from it, but they’re not participating as they should,” Commissioner George Dodson said of businesses that collect the tax from customers without remitting it to the city.

The commission asked that the item be placed on the October agenda for a progress report.

Channel 35 owner pitches free city TV channel, workshop request fails

Wes Crenshaw, owner of Channel 35, the only Class A television station in Texarkana, asked the commission to schedule a special workshop July 28 to hear a proposal he called a “Texarkana Metroplex hub,” combining over-the-air television, streaming and a mobile app into a free communications platform for city government, nonprofits and community events.

A motion to schedule the workshop failed for lack of a second after several commissioners said they were unavailable on that date and others said funding requests should go through the regular application process. The commission instead gave Crenshaw 15 minutes to outline the proposal.

Crenshaw said he would dedicate a commercial-free channel to Texarkana at no charge for the channel itself, but asked the city to cover the station’s operating costs, which he put at $6,500 a month, about $78,000 a year. Richards noted a previous version of the proposal had requested $150,000. Crenshaw said the station also carries a federally required emergency alert function and that he has a contract with a 44-channel network of Christian television stations to use the planned app.

Commissioners questioned how a station with a 30-mile broadcast radius would draw overnight visitors from outside the region, which is the commission’s mandate for spending A&P funds. Crenshaw was directed to apply through the 2027 funding cycle.

2027 funding cycle set for single October meeting

Applications for 2027 A&P grant funding open Aug. 1 with a deadline of Aug. 28, Washington said. Previous applicants will be notified directly and the application will be posted on the Experience Texarkana website.

On a 4-2 vote, commissioners chose to hear all applicant presentations and vote on awards in a single meeting in October rather than splitting the process into a workshop and a separate funding meeting. The meeting will begin at 2:30 p.m. Commissioners Dr. Ellen Holmes and Danny Jewell voted against the single-meeting format. Last year’s combined session ran into the evening.

Sports tourism data draws interest

Commission Chairman Ulysses Brewer presented concepts for future high-impact investments, including a multi-sport complex for volleyball, pickleball and basketball, baseball fields, a swimming pool and an ice rink, arguing the Arkansas side should position itself as a youth sports hub given its location at Interstates 30 and 49.

Richards backed the pitch with data from the city’s Placer AI location analytics software. He said a single baseball tournament on the Arkansas side last weekend drew about 7,000 total visitors, including 1,400 from more than 100 miles away and 1,757 visitors to area hotels, roughly 1,100 of them on the Arkansas side. By comparison, all events the commission funded in its most recent grant cycle combined generated 3,347 visitors from more than 100 miles away.

He also cited year-over-year gains tied to the Texas-side ballpark renovation, including a 68 percent increase in visits to dining establishments immediately after leaving the ballpark and a 45 percent increase in hotel visits. Visits to Chick-fil-A after leaving the ballpark rose from 10,900 to 15,200 visitors, and Texas Roadhouse visits rose from 11,000 to 20,000, he said.

A bond-funded ballpark project was voted down by the commission last year. Commissioner Rachel Scott, the board’s newest member, said the commission should begin setting aside reserve money each year toward a long-term capital plan rather than waiting.

Downtown maintenance, air show and vacancy

Dodson pressed the commission on downtown conditions, describing knee-high grass and litter. “We ought to at least mow them,” he said. Potter cautioned that A&P funds likely cannot lawfully be used for general city property maintenance, and said he continues to press the district court to assign community service workers downtown. Richards said state prisoner work crews that once maintained every creek in the city have all but disappeared.

Hamblett and Tracy Pittman of For All Brand Kind also recapped marketing performance, reporting more than 7,300 outbound clicks from the Experience Texarkana website to local businesses, a 260 percent increase, about 20,000 organic search clicks, 4 million paid ad impressions and 860,700 people reached on Meta platforms since the site launched in August 2025. They said the next Texarkana air show is set for July 1, 2028, on a two-year rotation opposite Barksdale Air Force Base’s show.

The commission declared a vacancy for its hotel industry seat and will advertise the position. The previous appointee was discovered to live in Hooks, Texas, outside the required Texarkana, Arkansas residency, when staff mailed her appointment letter.

The commission’s next regular meeting is the October funding session.