By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
People planning to combine alcohol with Fourth of July celebrations should make sure to take along a designated driver as area law enforcement agencies are gearing up for a busy weekend.
Members of Troop D of the Arkansas State Police in Forrest City will be out in force as part of the troop's weekend crackdown which will begin at midnight tonight.
According to ASP Lt. Tommy Wicker, troopers will be concentrating on stopping drinking and driving and will be out in force during the holiday period which ends Sunday at midnight.
In conjunction with their holiday crackdown, Troopers statewide are also involved in the "You Drink, You Drive, You Lose" program which is being co-sponsored by the Arkansas chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. According to Wicker as least six sobriety checkpoints will be set-up across the eight-county district that Troop D covers.
The St. Francis County Sheriff's Department will also be out in force over the weekend, according to Sheriff Dave Parkman, and drinking and driving will be the focus of their attention also. "We're going to be looking at deterring drinking and driving across the county, but otherwise we'll just be handling our normal duties," Parkman said.
Those that will spend the holiday weekend traveling on the interstate might want to consider alternate routes due to lane closures across the state. Twenty-four miles of interstate will be affected by closures.
On I-40, traffic will be down to one lane in each direction for three miles in Crawford County near Alma. In Johnson County, road work will close the interstate to one lane at two different locations for eight miles each at Clarksville and east of Clarksville and five miles along I-55 in each direction in Mississippi County near Osceola will also be closed.
A federal court order has apparently made Forrest City Schools exempt from a recently-passed school choice law.
Public School Choice Act 1272 of 2003, passed in recent legislation, requires that all public schools participate in school choice.
However, the Forrest City School District is currently under a federal desegregation order and must abide by the mandates outlined in the court order.
Therefore, the Forrest City School District is exempt from any rules and regulations governing the school choice act that would violate the mandates of the federal court order, according to school officials.
Forrest City School District Deputy Superintendent Alice Barnes stated, "Although this interpretation of the law is still being reviewed by the courts, the Forrest City School District will take every step necessary to ensure that we are in compliance with the law."
The Board of Education of the Forrest City School on July 1 passed a resolution that the Forrest City School District will admit non-resident students to its schools under the provisions of Act 1272 of 2003.
However, the addition of non-resident students must not require the Forrest City School District to add new teachers or classrooms or in anyway exceed the requirements and standards of established law. No student may transfer to a non-resident district where the percentage of enrollment for the student's race exceeds that percentage in the student's resident district except in the circumstances set forth in Subdivisions 2 and 4 of this act.
Subdivision 2 states, "A transfer to a district is exempt from the restriction set forth if the transfer is between two districts within a county, and if the minority percentage in the student's race and majority percentages of student enrollment in both the resident and non-resident districts remain within a n acceptable range of the county's overall minority percentage in the student's race and majority percentages of school population as set forth by the department." Subdivision 4 states, "A transfer is exempt from the restriction if each school district within the county does not have a critical mass of majority percentage in the student's race of more than ten percent of any single race."
Applications for non-resident students may be obtained from the Superintendent's Office of the Forrest City School District. All applications are due by August 1. All applicants will be notified of acceptance or rejection within 30 days.
St. Francis County had an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent during May, unchanged from April but up from the 8.1 percent recorded in May of 2002.
The figure gave the county the 14th highest of Arkansas' 75 counties.
According to the figures, from the Arkansas Employment Security Department, during May St. Francis County had a civilian Labor Force of 12,475, with 11,400 working and 1,075 not working.
The state's highest unemployment was 13.5 percent, recorded in Mississippi County. Four counties had unemployment above 10 percent (including Randolph at 11.3 percent, Chicot 11.1 percent and Marion at 10.6 percent). Twenty-two counties had unemployment of 8 percent or higher.
The lowest unemployment in the state was 1.3 percent in Madison County. Two other counties (Benton at 2.5 percent and Washington at 2.8 percent) had unemployment rates lower than 3 percent. Thirty-one counties had unemployment of 5 percent or lower.
The statewide rate was 5.5 percent.
The unemployment rates in surrounding counties were as follows: Cross, 8.4 percent; Crittenden, 6.9 percent; Lee, 9 percent; Phillips, 8.1 percent; Monroe, 7.1 percent and Woodruff, 7.1 percent.
The offices of the Times-Herald will be closed Friday for the Fourth of July holiday, and the newspaper will not publish. Publication will resume Monday, July 7.
Government offices, banks and other businesses will also be closed Friday.