By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
Members of the Delta Regional Airport Authority will have two weeks to decide on an engineer after viewing presentations from three firms Thursday night.
Board members decided, after a three-hour meeting, last night to table a decision on which of the three firms would receive the nod. Garver Engineers based in Little Rock, along with the LPA Group and EOCR, met with board members and outlined why they felt they would be best for the job.
"Tonight's meeting was just so that we could take a look at the three firms we chose and see what they had to offer. We're going to take a couple of weeks to look this information over, and hopefully we'll be able to make the right decision, possibly, at our next meeting," said Dr. John Kerr, chairman of the DRAA.
Each firm also presented proposals that outlined the needs for the possible airport. At the mention of a 5,000-foot runway, Bill Hays questioned why the airports would need a runway that was not much longer than the runways at the current airports in Wynne and Forrest City.
"The 5,000 feet is just the starting point, and it allows you to handle larger planes that you can't currently handle. That's also the minimum to handle those size planes. The scale that we worked on also gave the option of a 6,000-foot runway and places you where it would be a small jump up to allowing small commuter flights," said Michael Griffen with Garver.
Engineers also showed plans that laid out possible sites across both St. Francis and Cross counties.
Locations ranged from near Wynne to several sites along Arkansas Highway 1 and even a pair of proposed sites on Crowley's Ridge. The diagrams were meant to give board members a view of the size of a potential airport, but were not set in concrete, according to the firms.
Thursday's meeting was the first sanctioned meeting for the DRAA.
The second of four ordinances necessary for the creation of the board was agreed to Tuesday night by the Forrest City City Council. Both the council's of Forrest City and Wynne have passed the ordinance and the quorum court's of St. Francis and Cross counties will need to pass it.
According to Forrest City City Attorney Alan Cline, at least two of the bodies were required to pass the ordinance to sanction the committee.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
The exit conference has been held, the team has gone home, and Crowley's Ridge Technical Institute is now waiting for the results.
Good news is expected.
A five-member team from the Council of Occupational Education completed its visit to the CRTI campus on Thursday. According to CRTI President Burl Lieblong, word on whether the school will receive COE accreditation should be coming within the next few weeks.
"They left about 9 o'clock yesterday morning," Lieblong said this morning. "They had an exit conference with the steering committee. They were positive."
Lieblong said the COE team will present findings, from which a decision will be made.
"Nothing is official until I get it from the COE home office in Atlanta," he said.
The exit conference went well, according to Lieblong.
"There was some discussion, but they were very complimentary of the school, very complimentary of the staff, very complimentary of the community support we have," he said.
He said there may be "suggestions," but he doesn't expect any "recommendations." In the parlance of COE, a recommendation is something which has to be done, a suggestion is something that the school might think about but doesn't have to do.
"There was, maybe, a suggestion about long range planning for facilities and campus planning, but I don't think there will be any recommendations," Lieblong said.
He said he feels upbeat about the visit.
"I feel good about it. When you have a team come in, everyone has a different personality, and we had a wonderful team leader in Darrell Rodriguez," he said. "He kept them on task. I feel very good about it, and I look forward to getting the official report." The team arrived Monday and were honored with a reception. They then spent the next few days checking to see if their school meets COE standards. The team members were from Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida and Kentucky.
COE provides accreditation to more than 1,200 technical schools across the country and in Puerto Rico.
A guard at the Federal Correctional Institution-Forrest City has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he allegedly accepted cash from an inmate to smuggle contraband into the prison complex.
The indictment, handed up Thursday in Little Rock, charges Charles Troup Jr., 25, of Forrest City, with one count of bribery. The charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both.
The indictment didn't specify how much money Troup is accused of accepting, and the contraband was described only as "items prohibited to inmates."
Troup, who had been employed at the FCI-FC since August 1999, was arrested in November as he was leaving a local restaurant. At that time, he was charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent near certain facilities.
Two more businesses have been victimized by having BB or pellet gun damage done to windows.
On Thursday, it was reported that two windows at Ole South Pancake House had been damaged by either a BB gun or air gun. Also on Thursday, it was reported that the back window of a business truck at Gray's Service Center had also been shot out.
The two incidents reported Thursday bring the total to about a dozen which have been reported, beginning last Saturday. At this time it is not known if the incidents are all related.
Crime Stoppers has asked that anyone with information on any of the incidents call 261-1499. Calls are kept confidential, and rewards are possible when tips lead to convictions.
A Little Rock man injured in a one-vehicle accident has also been charged with DWI, according to a St. Francis County Sheriff's Department report.
Othello Rucker Jr. of Little Rock was traveling north on County Road 239, according to the report, when he apparently lost control of his vehicle, which was rolled.
Rucker was injured, and was transported to the Med in Memphis. However, according to the record, he has also been charged with DWI fourth offense, a Class D felony.
Three city councils are scheduled to meet Monday night in St. Francis County.
The Widener City Council will meet at 6 p.m., and the Madison City Council and Hughes City Council will each meet at 7 p.m. The meetings will be held at each city's city hall.
On Tuesday, the St. Francis County Quorum Court will hold its regular meeting at 6 p.m. The QC's personnel committee will meet at 4:30 p.m., and the budget committee will meet at 5:30 p.m.