Texarkana board adopts lower fees for Front Street Festival Plaza

The Texarkana Board of Directors voted to adopt an ordinance lowering rental fees for the Front Street Festival Plaza and eliminating a separate cleanup fee, with the final roll-call vote recorded as unanimous.

Tracy Lee, who presented the measure, told the board that staff recommended reducing fees to make the plaza “more marketable” after the city collected only $6,475 last year from the venue. “Last year, we only made $6,475 … because we only had 2 events that paid because the fees are so high,” Lee said.

Under the proposal discussed at the meeting, many rental rates would be reduced roughly by half. Staff described the changes as including a reduction in daily and half-day rental rates for for-profit and nonprofit users, removal of a separate $500 cleanup fee, and retention of a $500 security deposit that would be returned when event organizers performed required cleanup. Staff said the cleanup fee historically covered Parks cleanup but Parks no longer performs that service, creating overlap with the security deposit.

A resident and several board members raised concerns about whether lowering fees would be offset by new police-staffing requirements for large events. Staff said the city will present a proposed police-presence policy and associated overtime compensation for officers at the next board meeting; organizers could hire private security, but the city would still require a police presence based on anticipated crowd size.

Board discussion included whether the reduced fees would meaningfully increase bookings and whether the city should be able to recoup costs if cleanup exceeded the deposit. Staff said the city could add language to allow recovery of overtime cleanup costs in limited cases but recommended keeping the $500 deposit as the primary remedy because overtime cleanup needs have been uncommon.

The board instructed the city attorney to read the ordinance in abbreviated form for first, second and third readings. After motions and roll calls across those readings, the clerk recorded a final vote in which each director and Mayor Brown voted yes; the mayor announced the ordinance was adopted.

The ordinance’s text and the precise fee schedule were presented at the meeting; some numeric line items in the transcript were difficult to follow verbally. The board directed staff to return with a related police-staffing proposal at the next meeting.

The ordinance takes effect according to the city’s standard adoption procedures and any effective date specified in the adopted ordinance text.