Zach was appointed on November 25, 2025 — not elected. So he's not asking anyone to take him on faith. Here's the whole account, with dates. Check it against the minutes — every agenda, every set of minutes and the monthly financials are posted on the city website.
Every regular council meeting since August 2020 — he started coming before he was ever seated. One mark each. None of them empty.
96
Meetings attended Zero missed
2025Two votes against $11.5 million in debt. His was one.+
The plan was to hand Mayflower's sewer system to Conway Corporation and borrow $11,544,000 to do it — a twenty-year loan at 4%, repaid through residents' sewer bills. As an alderman, he was one of only two who voted against it.
Nov 25, 2025Appointed to finish the term+
The room that night.
Danny Hester's resignation took effect November 4. The council could either appoint or call a special election — and an election would have cost money and left the office empty until February, for a term expiring that December. They took nominations. Two names went forward, both nominees spoke, residents spoke for each, and the council deliberated in executive session. He was chosen on a divided vote. The minutes record his nominator's reasons: a third term on the council, a perfect attendance record, and familiarity with the budget. His first act after taking the oath was to recommend Ricky Hammon — a food truck owner who had told him a month earlier he wanted to serve — for Ward 2 Position 2, the seat Jack Paul had vacated. The council appointed him unanimously and Jeffery swore him in the same night.
Dec 4, 2025Day-to-day management, by unanimous vote+
Ordinance 2025-19, passed at a special meeting on December 4 — nine days after he took office — created a City Administrator position, so someone is accountable for city operations every business day rather than only at the monthly meeting.
Dec 2025$400,000 approved to resurface 2.71 miles of street+
Mayflower Overlay No. 3, through the state's City Street Aid program — approved December 10, fifteen days after he took office. Eleven streets, 2.71 miles: Satterfield, Ashmore, Railroad, Old Sandy, Billy, Lucky, Main/Cross, Cross, Ada, Center and Gandy. The engineer's estimate came to $481,979 against $400,000 in state aid, and the council has approved the difference so the full list stays in. It goes to bid in January 2027.
Dec 22, 2025Sixty new water meters+
Resolution 2025-50, passed unanimously. Old meters run slow, and every gallon they fail to register shows up as water the city buys and can't account for. Unaccounted-for water stood at 20.94% in the 2025 survey; by the January council meeting it was 16.26%, and it is under 10% now.
Dec 2025 – Jun 2026Every department has a leader again+
Water, street, fire and police all have leadership in place. A police chief was recruited and offered the job on December 22 — twenty-seven days after he took office, in a department that had been without one since October 28. Fire Chief Zack Warren was appointed January 12. Bryan Wright took the street department in April after Jimmy Joe Johnson retired following three decades of service, and the council made his appointment permanent in August. In waterworks, Josh Goodson steps up as Raymond Arnold — also past thirty years — moves into a reduced role by his own choice and stays on with the city. Police is led by Interim Chief Brittany Byrd, appointed on April 15 — two days before the previous chief's resignation took effect, so the department was never left uncovered. Since then the department has added two patrol officers and a school resource officer, with two new patrol vehicles going into service. It stays interim on purpose: an appointed mayor shouldn't lock in a decision that outlasts his term, and the elected mayor makes that call in 2027.
Dec 2025 – Jun 2026Backup power for the fire station and a water pump+
A state hazard mitigation grant put standby generators at the Mayflower fire station and the Red Oak Drive water tower pump station. In a town that has been through a tornado and a flood, that is the difference between a fire truck rolling and a water tower going quiet when the power drops. Awarded December 2, installed, and closed out on reimbursement before the June 1 deadline.
Jan 2026Mayflower's first 24-hour staffed fire department+
Before January, a fire call went out to volunteers and to the chief at home. They came when they could, and this town owes them for it. Now there is staff at the station around the clock, rolling within minutes of the alarm.
Jan 2026Amended the 2026 budget after a full review+
The council passed a budget amendment following a comprehensive study and review of city finances.
Jan 27, 2026Walked away from the Conway sewer deal+
Conway Corporation first quoted $6.50 per thousand gallons to treat Mayflower's wastewater. Told that was unacceptable, they came down to $4.00 — with a 2% increase every year, forever, set by them. The council voted unanimously not to sign the state's acceptance letter and not to proceed. The $11.5 million was never drawn, and the city is building its own plant instead.
Jan 27, 2026466 feet of Center Street rebuilt+
Resolution 2026-03 authorised up to $53,000 from the street sales tax fund to rebuild a failed stretch of Center Street — gravel $17,210.10, hauling $9,600, lining $2,303.90, asphalt $23,300, itemised in the resolution. Not a resurfacing: the base came out and went back in. The rest of Center Street is on the 2027 overlay list.
Jan 27, 2026Filled his own vacated council seat+
Ward 2 Position 1 came open when he stepped down from it to become mayor. He interviewed several residents who had expressed interest and put forward Randy Holman, then serving on the Planning Commission. The council approved it unanimously on January 27 and he administered the oath the same night.
Feb 24, 2026Cut his own salary by $19,451.04+
Resolution 2026-09, passed unanimously on February 24: "the annual salary of the Mayor of the City of Mayflower shall be reduced by Nineteen Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-One Dollars and Four Cents per year." The resolution records twice that he asked for it himself. It took effect the following payroll cycle and stays in effect until some future council votes to change it.
Feb 24, 2026The city attorney's job description, brought up to date+
Ordinance 2026-06 rewrote the chapter governing the city attorney. Until then the code directed him to prosecute the city's cases in Municipal Court — a court Arkansas abolished two decades ago — and instructed him to provide "council" to the mayor rather than counsel. The rewrite fixed the terminology and set out the duties plainly: attend council and commission meetings, draft and review legislation, give written opinions.
Feb 24, 2026A real personnel handbook, twelve years overdue+
Ordinance 2026-07 repealed the old chapter of the municipal code and adopted a complete City of Mayflower Personnel and Policy Handbook, replacing a patchwork of documents that hadn't been overhauled in twelve years. It passed 4–2, after two members asked for further review of how the police chief and assistant chief roles were defined.
Feb 24, 2026Rebuilt the Planning Commission — and fixed the code that governs it+
Four members — Todd Kelsey, Jennifer Massey, Stephen Reynolds and Andy Stoll — appointed on his recommendation and confirmed unanimously on January 27, with Clay Parker added March 24. Then the code itself. Three sections of Chapter 13.04 gave three different answers to how many people sit on the commission: one said eight members with the chairman as a ninth, another said six, a third made the chairman the seventh. Ordinance 2026-08 settled it at seven members with the chairman as an eighth who votes only to break a tie. It passed unanimously on February 24 with an emergency clause — because a commission whose own rules contradict themselves is a commission whose decisions can be questioned.
Feb 24, 2026Counseling and crisis support for city employees+
Resolution 2026-10 put the city's first Employee Assistance Program in place — counseling, crisis intervention and work-life support for employees and their households, at $3,200 a year. The personnel handbook adopted the same night promised the benefit; this paid for it. In a city whose police and firefighters answer the worst calls people have, it is not a small thing.
Feb 24, 2026A water bill you can actually see+
Resolution 2026-11, passed unanimously, replacing the water billing system and adding a customer web portal — so a resident can look up their own usage and pay their own bill without ringing city hall. $36,000, budgeted in the waterworks capital outlay and awarded through a competitive RFP on the department's recommendation. Implementation and data conversion are underway.
Feb 24, 2026Contractors and utilities pay for what they tear up+
Ordinance 2026-12, passed unanimously, holding contractors and utility companies accountable for damage caused by installation and directional boring — the torn-up yards and driveways residents were left to deal with themselves.
May 26, 2026Put forward the person who ran against him+
Ricky Hammon resigned Ward 2 Position 2 on May 26. The mayor recommended Wendy Moore for the seat — the resident who had been nominated for his own job instead of him six months earlier. With two aldermen absent, he sat as a voting member to make quorum and voted for her himself. It carried unanimously and he administered her oath of office. A full council mattered more than a comfortable one.
Jun 23, 2026Handled a conflict of interest the way the law requires+
Arkansas law bars a council member from having an interest in a city contract unless the council passes an ordinance permitting it and setting out exactly how far that permission goes. When the question came up, the city did that in public rather than leaving it informal: Ordinance 2026-16 names the business, requires that all work go through the city's purchasing and bidding procedures, requires prices and quality at least as good as anyone else's, and creates no exclusive arrangement. Passed unanimously.
Jun 23, 2026The tornado warning sirens were upgraded+
Resolution 2026-32 replaced the siren control system. It was tabled in May because the council wanted more information, worked through at a June workshop with the fire chief, and passed unanimously on June 23. The new system is online.
Jul 28, 2026Started clearing the derelict structures+
Two dangerous buildings condemned by unanimous vote. On the first, the mayor had already spoken with the owner, who had a demolition company lined up before the resolution came to a vote. Derelict structures sit for years in towns this size because nobody wants the argument.
Summer 2026The city can repair its own streets now+
An asphalt planer and a utility tractor, bought through competitive bids with the results and the reasoning put in front of the council. The planer lets the street crew cut out and resurface bad pavement themselves instead of waiting on a contractor — and the millings it produces get kept and reused on other projects rather than hauled off.
Aug 2026Got the Flock cameras out of Mayflower+
Mayflower had automated license plate readers recording where residents drive — put in place under a spending threshold, without a council vote. Mayflower suspended the contract in early August and the cameras came down at the end of the month. Several other Arkansas cities suspended theirs that summer; Mayflower is the only one that took them down. The police department has said publicly it will not contract with any similar service or take part in any form of mass surveillance.
Sept 2026Sat down with Conway and Maumelle on the I-40 corridor+
Mayflower sits between two larger cities on the same interstate, and what gets built along it affects all three. He has been attending the regional meetings on the corridor alongside city leaders and chamber representatives from Conway and Maumelle — the room where decisions about growth on this stretch of road get discussed before they arrive as applications. [[ Add the date and how many of these meetings he has attended. ]]
Sept 2026Waterworks Policy+
The first Waterworks policy the city has ever had — more than 200 pages of operating procedure for the water utility, plus a construction specification book setting what contractors and developers must build to before the city accepts and owns their pipes. Being presented to the council this month.
Jul 2026Sidewalk plans finished and filed+
The Miller Street sidewalks project is fully designed — survey, environmental clearance and construction plans all complete, with the plans and project manual submitted to ARDOT on July 15. It has taken since December 2023 to get there. A supplemental award from Metroplan later that month addressed the funding gap the estimate had opened up.
2026Main Street repaved+
All of Main Street was overlaid — which is why it came off the 2027 street list. The original contract was $777,000; a change order took it to $805,000; the work came in at $773,000, about $3,800 under the original figure, with $58,000 held back until the punch list is finished.
2026Written policies where there weren't any+
Public works, land use, and purchasing and procurement policies drafted and implemented, with a Unified Development Ordinance in council review. Everybody bids the same way, and everybody knows the rules before they start.
2026One public works department+
The Street Department already maintains the parks, the buildings, the rights of way and the trash routes as well as the streets — the whole job under a name that describes a part of it. Realigning it as Public Works, with written procedures and costs allocated to the right fund, is how the city finds out what that work actually costs.
2026Mayflower's first comprehensive plan since 2004+
A full land use, street and community facilities plan with a 2026–2046 horizon, still in draft. It replaces a street plan adopted in 2004 and goals adopted in 2012. It sets out where the city can grow, what the sewer system can carry, and what each commitment costs — with every figure sourced. The land use and street elements go to the Planning Commission first; the rest follows.
2022 – 2026$1.29 million brought into a town of 2,200+
Three FEMA Assistance to Firefighters awards totalling $686,107.93 — breathing apparatus, turnout gear and hose — won by city staff across 2021, 2023 and 2024. $58,575 in state hazard mitigation funds for standby generators at the fire station and the Red Oak Drive water tower pump. $150,000 from Metroplan in July 2026 — a supplemental award for the Miller Street sidewalks, where the engineer's estimate had come in about $181,000 over what the city had. And $400,000 in state street aid for 2.71 miles of overlay, approved in December 2025. On the four completed awards the city committed $53,830 of its own money to secure $744,683 — about fourteen dollars back for every one put in. The sidewalk funds are obligated. Two further fire applications are in for the 2025 cycle — $827,116 in federal funds requested — with FEMA due to decide by September 30. Those are applications, not awards, and they are not counted above.
Lately
Out in the town
The record above is the paperwork. This is the part that happens in rooms.
September 12
Candidate town hall
The League of Women Voters of Faulkner County hosted a forum at the City Center. He took questions for an hour and a half. An audio-visual fault meant the League was unable to record it.
September 12
Pancake breakfast for the fire department
Pancakes and a silent auction at the Senior Center, raising money for Mayflower Fire — the same day as the town hall.
The next four years
What comes next
Four commitments, written plainly enough that you can hold him to them.
01
The sewer plant, and what it costs you
The plant is over capacity and under a state order. It gets replaced whether or not another house is built. A plant this city owns, at about eight million — instead of eleven and a half to hand the system to Conway. Rates are going up, and you'll hear the numbers from him before you get a bill.
02
Growth on Mayflower's terms
More than 300 homes are proposed, and one of those subdivisions still has to come back to the city for approval. Developers pay for their own sites — lines, streets, drainage. No data centers, no new industrial, no large warehousing; the industrial park is zoned and finite. What the city requires gets written down before it's needed, not after.
03
Public safety that keeps pace
Round-the-clock fire coverage started in January, and the police department has added officers and equipment. Going forward, the city's specification book means new development goes in with water lines sized for firefighting rather than only for drinking water — so what gets built from here is right the first time.
04
Policies and plans that are actually current
A good deal of this city's rulebook was written decades ago and never revisited — sections referring to a court Arkansas abolished twenty years ago, and a planning commission chapter that gave three different answers to how many people sit on it. The work is to finish refreshing what is out of date and write what was never there at all, including new land use, street and comprehensive plans. When a commitment gets missed, it gets reported as missed.
Ask Zach
Ask anything. Get a straight answer.
Send a question — signed or anonymous. It gets answered in writing or on video,
and both the question and the answer get posted publicly. Including the hard ones.
New staff needed somewhere to work. Saturday, on his own time.
Meet Zach
From here. Still here.
Zach Jeffery started going to Mayflower City Council meetings in August 2020, before he was elected to anything. He hasn't missed one since — not for weather, not for work, not for anything else. That isn't a slogan. It's an attendance record, and it's in the city clerk's minutes for anyone who wants to go look.
He was born here. Raised here. Went through Mayflower schools and never left. The people he sat beside in those classrooms are the people he'd be working for.
He works in Conway — years in a middle school classroom, and an assistant principal at Simon Middle School since 2025. He drives out in the morning and comes home to Mayflower every night, same as a lot of people in this town. He works somewhere else. He lives here.
It also means he already does a version of this job. An assistant principal spends every day on a budget he didn't set, on staff, on buildings, and on problems that walk in without an appointment. City hall is the same work with a different sign out front.
He graduated salutatorian from Mayflower High School in 2000, went to UCA for a degree in middle level education — summa cum laude in 2013 — and came back for a master's in leadership studies and his administrator's licensure in 2018. He has spent his working life in schools since.
For more than ten years he has volunteered with the Mayflower High football program, the same one that taught him to work. He has coached youth sports and serves in the youth ministry at First Baptist. Barbara, his wife of twenty-five years, earned her law degree in 2019 while working full time. Their two children, Kaitlynn and Kalvin, are grown now — and both went through Mayflower High, same as their father.
Where he'll be
Come ask in person
Public events between now and Election Day. If you'd rather he came to you, ask him.
Mon, Oct 5
Chamber of Commerce meet & greet
An informal gathering of candidates hosted by the Mayflower Area Chamber of Commerce, 5:00 to 8:00 at the Mayflower City Center, 5 Ashmore. Zach will be there.
Get involved
This race is won on porches
A few hundred votes decide who runs Mayflower. Zach is paying for this campaign out of his own pocket and isn't accepting contributions — so your street and the people you already know are the whole operation.
Knock a few doors
Two hours on a Saturday covers a whole street. No experience needed — you'll go out with someone who's done it.
Talk to your neighbors
Zach is paying for this campaign himself and isn't taking donations. The only thing it needs is people willing to say his name to somebody else.
Have him come to you
Want to talk in person? Ask him to your doorstep, or get a few neighbors together and he'll come sit with all of you. You don't have to wait for him to reach your street.
Put a question to Zach — signed or anonymous. He answers every one in writing or on video, and both the question and the answer get posted publicly. Including the hard ones.
