By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
There was standing room only in the Forrest City council chambers Thursday evening, with the crowd spilling over into the hall, as well over 100 people turned out for a public hearing on the proposed expansion of the Forrest City Municipal Airport.
Most of the crowd were against the expansion, and came prepared. Many wore stick-ons proclaiming "I Support Regional Airport." There were also at least two larger signs saying, "Citizens for Rational Development."
Before comments began, Dan Clinton with Grimes Engineers in Little Rock, and Steven C. Wagner, with Coffman Associates, an airport consulting company, gave a presentation on the proposed expansion. Tim Tandy, program manager and environmental specialist with the Federal Aviation Administration, was also present.
Basically, the proposal is to build a longer runway, 5,000 feet long and 100 feet wide. The present runway is 3,000 feet long and 50 feet wide, and much of it would be converted into a taxiway.
Although the exact cost of the project is not known, one figure that has been thrown around is $3 million.
The project would affect several farms in the area and cause one road, SFC 738, to be closed.
Burl Lieblong, president of Crowley's Ridge Technical Institute, was asked to moderate the meeting. Each speaker was given a maximum of five minutes, and people were allowed to present written comments as well.
In all, 26 people signed up to speak, and about 24 actually ended up speaking.
Both Buzz and Jan Haven spoke and gave their objections to the expansion (see sidebar).
Phil Hicky spoke and called the expansion a "Band-Aid" approach. He said a regional airport would be a much better solution to the problem.
Several people mentioned that the current airport is not a good place to land, because of some high electrical wires and Crowley's Ridge. One of them, Danny McCollum, a crop duster, said that on a hot, humid summer day, he could not get enough lift to get over the wires.
"What's the only thing to do? Go under them," he said. "Can you imagine a Learjet going under those wires? I think it's an accident waiting to happen. The power line is a major factor. And it's there, and they're not going to move it."
Tom Newman with the Civil Air Patrol said he was not opposed to a regional airport. In fact, he said, "I think you ought to go for it."
However, he said a regional airport is something in the far future, while something needs to be done now. He also said the wire hazard is real but "there's always going to be something sticking up somewhere." He said a true regional airport would require at least a 10,000 -foot runway.
"In the meantime, you need something. Don't neglect what you have."
Billy Lee, the Cross County Judge, attended and told the crowd that Cross County is ready to cooperate on the regional airport concept.
Earnestine Weaver said that while she is not opposed to a regional airport, she believes the present airport needs to be expanded. She said it would help bring jobs to the area.
"We talk about a regional airport, which I have no doubt would be good," she said. "But would it take another 40 years to do it? The main concern should be the citizens who live and work and earn in St. Francis County."
Joan Collier spoke, and said she is aware of landowners who are willing to discuss selling land for a regional airport.
Stanley Reed of Marianna, who also farms in St. Francis County and is vice president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, told the group that as far as environmental concerns go, "The real endangered species is the family farmer."
He also spoke about the dangers of winds over the Ridge and the high wires.
Henry Jones, of the Stanley Grove area, said, "I'm not so much against the airport, but don't close the road." He said closing the road would work a hardship on people in that area.
Danny Ferguson, a member of the Arkansas House and also executive director of the Forrest City Area Chamber of Commerce, said agriculture is declining as an important employment base. He also said a regional airport would be a good thing.
"One thing I'm glad to see is all these stickers about a regional airport," Ferguson said. "Because that was also proposed a few years ago, and was turned down by our neighbors to the north...The bottom line is we need job opportunities for our children and our schools...We're in pretty good shape infrastructure-wise, but we critically need an airport. We've got one of the smallest municipal airports serving an industrialized area of any city in this state.
"I guess I would just say that I hope everybody that's here and outside who has a regional airport sticker, I hope that if this winds up going in a different direction toward a regional airport...that every single one of you are back if there's a public hearing on that regional airport. I hope your sticker is not just to kill this proposal, but to promote a regional airport...One of our weaknesses right now is, we've got a paved crop duster strip out there, trying to recruit industry to this area."
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
Before a public hearing Thursday on the possible expansion of Forrest City's airport, an informal meeting was held on the property of one family opposing the expansion.
Buzz and Jan Haven, along with other family members, met with city council members A.L. Harris and John Gadberry and Matt Largen with U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln's office. They met at Jessland Plantation, owned by the Haven family.
They said the expansion would cause some prime farm land to be taken out of production. They also said it would interfere with irrigation of land not taken by the airport.
In addition, the end of the runway would be close to the house where one of the Haven's children, Bart, lives with his wife and child. They expressed worry over the noise and safety factor.
"Who wants to live here?" said Buzz Haven. "You wouldn't either. Nobody would want to live where you've got a fence right here and you've got an airport just outside there. I'm saying if I have to live with an expansion, it needs to be on a different plan."
Under the proposed plan, County Road 738 would also be closed, which the Havens claimed would be detrimental to people who use that road, including residents, church congregations and farmers. They said it would make distances some people have to travel two to three times farther to reach the same destinations.
They also stated that any amount they would be paid for the land would be lost over time because of reduced earnings from the irrigated farm land.
"The arguments used to justify the expansion and to support the Environment Assessment are weak and self sustaining arguments for what the writers want, There are no justifications," the family said in a written statement handed out later at the public hearing.
The Havens say they support the concept of a regional airport, perhaps in conjunction with Cross County and even other governments in the area. They stated they know people who own property near Interstate 40 and the Forrest City Industrial Park who are willing to discuss it.
By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
Members of the St. Francis County Quorum Court met this morning with Forrest City Mayor Larry Bryant and Forrest City City Council Member A.L. "Sonny" Harris to discuss the municipal courthouse, which the city and county share expenses on.
According to both county and city officials, communication between the two offices may have caused a misunderstanding regarding payments due to the county from the city on the facility.
"We've found out this morning that ya'll are more than willing to pay your half of the expenses that we've talked about. But, we were under the understanding that ya'll wouldn't pay, and we were under the impression that we weren't supposed to," said quorum court justice Regan Hill.
According to Harris, the problem may have been miscommunication. "Municipal court has always been a 50-50 proposition. It's like with your janitorial (in the building). You're there. It's your thing, and it would be your responsibility to bill us, just like it's our responsibility to bill you all 50-50 for everything else," said Harris.
According to Bryant, the city of Forrest City hasn't tried to avoid any payments to the county, instead, the city hasn't been billed.
"The bills at one time were coming here as they should but they're not anymore, and I've written letters because when we get the bills we pay them," said Bryant.
Another issue discussed during this morning's meeting was 911 payment money. According to Bryant, Forrest City pays in per capita, roughly 60 percent of the funding for 911 but hasn't been receiving any of the funds from 911.
"We don't receive a penny of the 911 money, and we've upgraded it over there (at the Forrest City Police Department) and we pay our 911 operators and we don't get a thing. I submitted a proposal (to County Judge Carl Cisco) after we did our new millennium upgrade that all of the money should go into a trust fund, up and until, the amount that it took to pay for the system that we have so that we'd have enough money to pay for a new system if that one went out. All of the money over the cost of the replacement, 10 percent, would be put into an account that would allow us to pay our operators," said Bryant.
Those in attendance at the meeting agreed to attempt to form a committee made up of both city council members and quorum court justices which would work to formulate a solution to both issues mentioned during the meeting.
Parents picking their children up at school this year will notice some time differences among campuses in the Forrest City School District.
Due to traffic congestion caused by parents picking their children up at elementary schools, district officials this year agreed to have the students leave before the buses could begin arriving at the five elementary campuses scattered throughout the area.
Car riders, as they are referred to by district personnel, in kindergarten through fifth grades at Caldwell, Forrest Hills, Madison, Central and Stewart schools are dismissed at 3 p.m.
FCSD Deputy Superintendent Dr. Alice Barnes said the dismissal time, which was changed from the 3:12 dismissal last year, is so the bus drivers "won't have to deal with the traffic the town students create," she said.
One reason for the move was to get the cars away from the schools so that buses could more easily maneuver their way to the high school, junior high and middle school campuses.
Basically, Barnes said, "We're trying to speed up the buses."
The dismissal times for older students who are picked up at school by their parents is unchanged from last year despite some classes being scattered throughout other campuses due to the junior high construction project.
Lincoln Middle School car riders are dismissed at 3:15. The eighth and ninth grades are dismissed at 3:20, and the high school is dismissed at 3:22, according to Barnes. Even though the ninth grade is located inside the high school building, those students are let go a few minutes early to avoid the 10th through 12th grade student rush, Barnes said.
Two juveniles are charged with setting fires last weekend that destroyed several buildings in downtown Hughes.
Both suspects are 15 years old and will be tried as adults on charges of two counts of arson and seven counts of aggravated assault, according to reports at the St. Francis County Sheriff's Department.
The pair of fires on Sunday morning destroyed seven buildings. Hughes Fire Department officials estimated the fires were set within 15 minutes of each other about 1 a.m.
By CRYSTAL HOLLIS
T-H Staff Writer
The Forrest City Public Library will be closed as of 5:30 p.m. today for a couple of weeks to allow employees to inventory all materials in the library.
The board of directors learned this week that the computer hard drive sent to Excaliber, the company commissioned to try and recover the lost data from the server crash last month, could not guarantee information found on the hard drive was what the library needed.
According to co-director DeShaun Roberts, Excaliber found the Wenibago/Spectrum circulation information is not recoverable and they found only 1,058 files and 81 directories. The company quoted a price of almost $3,000 to recover the files.
"That doesn't sound like it would be our patrons and inventory files," said Roberts. "They don't know what the files are until we agree to pay the money," she said.
The board decided to not pay the $3,000 to Excaliber because the company couldn't guarantee the files they had recovered would be of any importance to the library. "Everyone has told me that if the circulation data was not backing up and being saved, I would have found an error message on the computer, but it didn't do that," said Roberts.
At any rate, the board and the library personnel will try to come up with special programs to offer to the community to make up for the recent closings.
"We want everyone to know that we are sorry about all of this trouble, and we really don't want to have to close, but we need to so we can get everything squared away," said co-director Sarah Jumper, who is in charge of the inventory.
Roberts said, "We do want to have some special programs to show the community how much we appreciate their patience during this time."
The board also discussed possible children's programs and plans to have a booth at the St. Francis County Fair.