By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
The Forrest City City Council on Tuesday officially named members of the Health Facilities Board, a group which will enable Counseling Services of Eastern Arkansas to issue bonds to build a new facility.
The council also adopted an ordinance establishing the board.
CSEA is part of Jonesboro-based Mid-South Health Systems.
At the last meeting, the names of several aldermen were submitted as board members. This was because they had not yet approached people in their respective wards about serving on the board. Tuesday night all the board nominations were completed.
The board will consist of the following: Ward I, Myrria Brooks; Ward II, Eddie Mosby; Ward III, Joan Collier; Ward IV, Sarah Easley; At-Large, Lynn Houston.
Ed Chauvin had originally been nominated as the at-large member. However, Steve Johnson, assistant executive director of Mid-South Health Systems, had said there might be problems with Chauvin's appointment. This was because Chauvin was a member of Behavioral Health Services, which lost its state contract in 1998 and was replaced by CSEA. Johnson said there was an "antagonistic relationship when all of that happened."
After learning of Johnson's remarks, Chauvin contacted Mayor Larry Bryant and asked that his name be removed from consideration. However, he did ask to speak at Tuesday's council meeting. He said he was on vacation at the time of the last council meeting and didn't know what had happened until he got back.
"I got back Sunday and read the newspaper," Chauvin said. "It seemed that my honesty and integrity was in question. So I spent a sleepless night, and the next day I asked to see the mayor and asked that he remove my name, and put somebody else in my place.
"Not that I couldn't do the job," he continued, "but I felt that, no matter what I did, it would be suspect. And if it was suspect on me, it would probably relate back on the mayor, who is the one who nominated me...I sort of hate to see people have their honesty and integrity questioned in an open place like this. If they didn't want me on there they could have gone to the mayor and talked to him and it could have been pretty quiet. I would have backed out. You don't get paid for doing those jobs. You just do them because you want to do them. But anyway, I thank the mayor for nominating me."
Near the end of the meeting, Alderman Glenn Ford addressed the issue, telling Chauvin that "This council knows you are a man of integrity."
The ordinance creating the board was amended to reflect the new board members, read three times under suspension of the rules and adopted.
The council also heard from Ronnie Mitchusson, who was objecting to a decision the council made in March concerning King Disposal Inc.
The council decided to pay the city's garbage hauler to continue charging for individual pickups at apartments which have only bins. The council agreed that there was ambiguous language in the contact.
Mitchusson said he did not believe the language was ambiguous, and that King Disposal should be paid only for bin pickups at the apartments in question. Mitchusson also said he believed that industries should be able to contract separately with their own garbage haulers if they can get a better price.
Brad Beavers, attorney representing King Disposal, said the time for arguing had passed, and said the council had made the right decision.
No action was taken.
The council also approved the appointment of Eva Pickett to the Library Board. On another matter, Mayor Larry Bryant announced that all fire and police personnel who have not yet had the Hepatitis B vaccine will receive it soon.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
The purchase of more land at the Forrest City Municipal Sports Complex is still on the table, but it will apparently be done without grant money.
At a public meeting Tuesday before the city council meeting, it was decided that the city would seek a grant to make improvements at the Southside Park swimming pool, rather than trying to get a grant to help purchase the land.
The grant being applied for is for outdoor recreation. It was learned at the meeting that the city had been turned down in its most recent application. The unsuccessful application was also for swimming pool improvements. However, the application came extremely close to being approved, and it was thought another application for the same thing might do better this time around.
Also, it is required that minority and elderly input be sought. Although the hearing was sparsely attended, young people in the Community Pride program had been questioned, as well as people at the Senior Citizens Center.
From those, it was found that the purchase of new land at the sports complex was not a priority. Improvements to the swimming pool were one of the things mentioned, along with more playground equipment, improved parking at the complex and more benches.
Later, at the city council meeting, the council heard the report from the public hearing. The council agreed to go forward with negotiations on an outright purchase of land adjacent to the sports complex, without grant money.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
The Forrest City Area Humane Society may possibly have found a new home, but it is having to go outside the city limits to get it.
In a meeting with Forrest City City Council members Tuesday, Humane Society members said property has been offered east of town, off U.S. Highway 70, near the County Shop. The property would either be donated or leased. The city will have to check into the legal ramifications of owning property and building on it, outside the city limits.
According to Gayden Schwartz, a Humane Society Member who serves on a special committee working with the council members, possible sites had been narrowed down to this property, and the municipal sports complex. None of the council members were in favor of the complex.
There have been more than a dozen sites proposed as a new home for the Humane Society. Most have been turned down for one reason or another. A couple were turned down because of the negative reaction of people in the area.
"We know there would be complaints (at the ball park), just as there have been, for example, at the location near a church," said Jean Guarr, president of the Humane Society.
"I think this site (east of town) would be compromise on all our parts," said Schwartz. "We don't want to upset people in the community. We want to do our part."
"At the same time," added Guarr, "we are not prepared to wait much longer." She said the current facility is not conducive to good health for the dogs.
"We just had a parvo (parvovirus, a highly contagious disease of dogs which is often fatal) outbreak which was bad, and it could have been a lot worse," Guarr said. "We had about three fatalities. We had to really get ahold of that. Of course, parvo is a disease, but overcrowding and stress, and the fact that we cannot properly sanitize what we have now, is a great contributor.
"We can't promise that in a state-of-the-art shelter, that there would never, ever be a parvo case, but we wouldn't have a crisis like we had just recently," Guarr said.
Schwartz added that rabies is becoming a factor in Arkansas, although it has not been reported in St. Francis County yet.
A minimum of two acres was mentioned, possibly more, at the site east of town. Guarr said there needed to be enough room for the building, an outdoor run and some landscaping. The property has water, but it is not known if there is sewer service. If there isn't, Schwartz said there is a sewer line not far away.
By ALAN SMITH
T-H Staff Writer
The St. Francis County Museum board discussed an exhibit to honor police officers and fire fighters that will be held at the museum in September and October of this year.
Laura Mazzanti, Director of the SFC Museum said the exhibit will have a section on the officers who served in New York on Sept. 11, and will have displays on local officers as well.
Mazzanti also had news on more current events. "Around June 29, we will feature a new exhibit from local artist Sarah Hughes. She is a recent graduate of Hendrix College in Conway, and her art will be on display through July and August."
"The recent Fish Fry was a success," reported Chairperson Rush Beavers, "We raised $1,800, and that will be matched, so that will really help. For this being the first year, I'd say it was a big success and has the potential to be something we do each year."
The board voted to apply for a $1,500 grant, as requested by board member Craig Jones, for the purchase of an audio tape recorder. The recorder will be used to interview World War II veterans in the local area to "preserve this part of history," said Jones.
"We intend to ask between 20 and 30 questions of local veterans about their lives during that time. Henry Haven with the VFW will be doing the interviewing," Jones added.
In other news, new board member Earnestine Weaver was officially introduced to the board, and the board voted to cancel the July and August meetings due to vacation conflicts in the summer months.
By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
St. Francis Quorum Court members agreed to appropriate $550,000 for the months of July and August during the group's regular monthly meeting Tuesday.
In a measure to insure the stability of the county's ailing general account, justices unanimously voted to continue with the plan of a two-month budget that has been used for the 2002 fiscal year. The budget for July and August needed adjustment at Tuesday's meeting due to changes which caused the appropriation to increase to $550,000. Justices added $3,000 to the budget, citing an agreement earlier this year to begin funding the St. Francis County Food Pantry and the Forrest City CARE Center in July. Projected revenue figures would have seen the county facing a deficit in July and August, but justices agreed to dip into the county's trust fund for $80,000. According to Justice Regan Hill, the funds available in the trust account were there due to recent help from both a $109,000 payment to the county for holding state inmates in the county jail as well as $50,000 that was appropriated from the trust account, but not spent in May.
"Because of the payment from the state and the $50,000 that we saved in May, we're actually in pretty good shape as far as the trust account is concerned. We can borrow this $80,000 now, and still come out ahead as far as our projections at the beginning of the year," Hill said.
St. Francis County Sheriff Dave Parkman also told justices that a tax payment, which normally is received in the spring from Boar's Head Provisions, would now be received in September. According to Parkman, a former comptroller with Boar's Head had been paying the $253,000 payment in the spring, but that a new comptroller was now handling the matter and that he had been told it would be paid sometime in September.
In other business, justices agreed to a proposal which will help both county finances as well as link the District Clerk's office with the county sheriff's office. According to deputy prosecutor Chris Morledge, the current system in use does not allow members of the Forrest City Police Department, St. Francis County Sheriff's Department and Arkansas State Police Troop D, to serve bench warrants issued by District Court. According to Morledge, the current system only allows members of area law enforcement agencies to access bench warrant information if the agency has the files on record.
"There was a recent case where two state troopers knew of an individual who had failed to appear in court. The individual was stopped by county deputies and the troopers just happened to hear the individual's name and called it in. Otherwise that person would have just received a ticket and driven away," said Morledge.
The solution to the problem would be a system which will link the District Clerk's office to a terminal which will be located in the St. Francis County Jail. Dispatchers would then have access to the files. According to Morledge, there could be as much as $500,000 in unpaid tickets and fines that would then be accessible.
"This is not a case where someone hasn't been doing their job. All three of our local law enforcement agencies are currently understaffed, and there's no way that they could serve all of the warrants that are outstanding," Morledge said.
Justices agreed to adopt several other ordinances to adjust appropriations and revenue reports for the annual audit as well as an ordinance which changed the sales tax formula and an ordinance appropriating $6,000 to the St. Francis County Conservation District.
One ordinance that was not adopted would have given county employees July 5 off instead of Columbus Day, but a motion to hear second reading on the ordinance failed when justices split the vote 5-5 with justices O.J. Gandy, Hill, Henry Wilkerson, Evans Seawood and Cliff Wise voting against the second reading, and justices Sam Armstrong, Jack Crumbly, Earline Smith, Donald Cagle and Author Witherspoon voting for the measure. Justice B. McCollum abstained.