By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
In a brief meeting Tuesday night, the Forrest City City Council heard yet another ordinance to require uniformed emergency personnel to live within the city.
It was the third time an ordinance to that effect has been on first reading. The first time, the ordinance simply stated that because of safety concerns, uniformed emergency city personnel had to live within the city limits. At the following meeting, the ordinance was amended to limit the provisions to new employees only, and the amended ordinance was read once.
At Tuesday's meeting, City Attorney Knox Kinney introduced another ordinance, which does the same thing, but includes several legal precedents. There had been some concern by council members over whether the proposed law could withstand a legal challenge.
Second and third readings of the ordinance will be held later, unless it is amended again.
On another matter, the council gave its approval to a preliminary plat for a nine-lot development named Horizon Subdivision, next to the Forrest Hills Addition. Paul Gunn represented Diacom Corp. The Forrest City Planning Commission had already given its approval.
In other business, the council heard first reading of an ordinance by Alderman Glenn Ford, requiring all increases in charges or fees to be approved by the city council.
The ordinance states, in part, that the city council has been endowed with legislative powers and also is charged with the financial management of the city, "and it is essential that all levying of taxes and any attempts to increase taxes be first approved by the city."
If the ordinance passes, no one will be able to increase a fee for use of city property or services without council approval. In addition, "any person acting in violation hereof may be subject to discharge after due process has been given."
The ordinance would apply to "any employee, department head, commissioner and others having discretionary authority on behalf of the city."
On another matter, Mayor Larry Bryant asked for permission to hire someone to fix the roof of the fire station. Earlier this year, Bryant said, the city received no bids on the project. However, he said several companies had been contacted and asked to give estimates for repairing the leaky roof. He said estimates had come in from $11,000 to $25,000. The disparity was due to the different methods (rubberized roofing, metal roof, etc.) that the companies proposed.
Alderman Cecil Twillie wondered why companies would give estimates now when they wouldn't submit bids earlier. After some discussion, the council agreed to seek bids one more time, after which the city will seek to negotiate the job with someone.
Also, Bryant asked the council to look at the city's millage rates, in preparation of setting the rates for next year. He said the millage might be set at the next meeting, or the first meeting in October.
Bryant also reported that the latest audit had shown the city to be in substantial compliance with accepted practices.
By CRYSTAL HOLLIS
T-H Staff Writer
The Forrest City Public Library board of directors has hired an independent computer contractor to provide a comprehensive repair and preventative maintenance program.
Library co-directors DeShaune Roberts and Sarah Jumper presented the board with two bids on the project on Tuesday.
Eric Wall of Eric Wall Consulting in Forrest City was selected based on his bid for the project. Wall will charge $75 an hour plus all software and hardware required to bring the computer system up to speed.
Wall based his assessment on a recent inspection of the library's network. He stated in a letter he had found numerous security holes, performance problems and overall stability issues.
He recommended a complete network assessment. Wall stated in his bid that hardware and software could be installed to insure the best solutions for the prevention of future failures.
The library has been closed for a couple of weeks while an inventory is being made of all of the library's materials. All the library's computerized records were lost when the library's computer server crashed.
A recovery company hired by the board found no information had been saved on the hard drive.
Wall's report stated there was no "firewall" software to prevent access to the Local Area Network by potential hackers. He also found no virus protection in the current system, leaving the library vulnerable to future crashes like the one this summer. His report did say the library had anti-virus software, but it had not been regularly updated.
Board members have not decided when the library can reopen. Roberts told board members Wall recommended the library stay closed while he worked on the system.
The board may announce next week when the library will be ready to open again.
A 14-year-old Forrest City girl has plead guilty to manslaughter in the death of her teenaged uncle.
The youth was sentenced to two years of supervised probation after entering her guilty plea Tuesday afternoon during a closed juvenile court hearing at the St. Francis County Courthouse.
The ninth-grader originally was charged as a juvenile with second-degree murder and could have received up to seven years of detention. She accepted the probation sentence as part of a plea agreement. She was expected to return to classes this week.
The girl was charged in the June 13 stabbing death of her 16-year-old uncle, Dexter Tyrone Henry of North Little Rock, who was staying at her Forrest City home.
The girl and her uncle were apparently arguing over the use of the telephone when she picked up a knife to scare her uncle. The girl told police that Dexter rushed at her to grab the phone and the knife accidentally lodged in his chest. He died at a hospital less than a half-hour later.
''I guess justice was done,'' Ronald Henry, Dexter's father and the young girl's grandfather, told the Associated Press.
Henry objected to the charges all along. He said his son's death was an accident and that the prosecutor had no right to pass judgment on what he believed was a family matter.
''I guess I'm going to get on with my life now,'' Ronald Henry said after Tuesday's trial.
Ronald Henry, who was home in North Little Rock the night of the stabbing, maintained that it was just teenage tomfoolery that led to his son's death.
The night Dexter died, his sister, who is also the young girl's mother, Sherea Henry, was working the night shift at a Tennessee correctional facility 45 minutes east. Dexter was babysitting the girl and her 5-year-old twin sisters.
''I feel the same as my dad, that it was just an accident,'' Sherea Henry told the AP Tuesday. ''It just makes me feel as if they (the prosecutors) took it and made it into what they wanted it to be, and it wasn't the way they tried to project it, as a murder.
''Right now I'm just torn up over the whole situation ... because I'm caught in between,'' she said. ''I'm trying to keep the bond with my dad, and I've got to keep the bond with my daughter ... But we're going to be a close family no matter what. We're going to stick together.''
Sherea Henry didn't arrive home from work until 11 p.m. the night of the stabbing. She said the house was empty.
''I didn't know what was going on. I called everyone I knew,'' she said.
Henry eventually went to the Forrest City police station, where she found her daughter and learned of her brother's death.
''I went into shock. I just kind of lost it and I couldn't believe this was really happening,'' she said.
Sherea Henry and her daughter even attended Dexter's funeral along with about 150 friends and family. They stood at the graveside together as the young boy was buried.
Now that the trial is over, Henry said it is time for the family to heal and to come together.
''That's just the system. I guess that's just how the law works,'' she said