By ALAN SMITH
T-H Staff Writer
Last night was the first time Forrest City has participated the National Night Out (NNO), a program to get neighbors talking to each other, to organize their community and to improve relations between law enforcement agencies and local residents.
The program was sponsored by the Forrest City Police Department locally and nationally by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW).
Information provided by the NATW states that over 34 million people and over 10,000 communities were to participate in last night's event. People were asked to go outside and lock their doors from 7 to 10 p.m. to show unity against crime in their neighborhood. Locally, the FCPD traveled through neighborhoods across the city handing out information on seat belt safety, crime prevention and other topics. Officers also traveled in the department's mobile command unit to hand out the information and visit with residents.
This morning, Lieutenant Eddie Adamson of the FCPD stated that overall he was pleased with the event and that the department hopes to develop the NNO into an annual tradition.
"Last night, we made contact with over 250 people during the night out," Adamson said. "We had two large block parties, one at Lake Street Park and one on Whitaker Street. At both of these events there were over 75 people barbecuing, frying fish, grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. The neighbors were out listening to music and listening to each other. Many of the people stated that while they knew their neighbors by sight, they had never really spoken to them. These two events went great. We had neighbors just having a good time with each other and we didn't have one problem."
Adamson stated that he hopes that next year the event will see an increase in participants.
"We did have a lot of people make a stand by coming out
from behind their locked doors and send the message to criminals
that they are not scared. The events at Lake Street Park and on
Whitaker are what we are looking for," Adamson said. "We
hope to have more of these events next year. Several people said
that they would have held their own block parties, but didn't
know about what we were doing until it was too late. We really
want to push this and have it become a tradition here. With the
word of mouth about what happened last night, we hope to have
a larger turn out next year and have more people take a stand
with us against crime."
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
The Forrest City City Council voted Tuesday to build a new multipurpose center in an area behind Forrest City Church of God, on land that is part of the Municipal Sports Complex.
Although it had been reported earlier that a parking lot was being built for the new center, the council had not officially decided on a location. Several council members said they favored that spot, and no one dissented.
On a related matter, Mayor Larry Bryant said a new walking track is near completion at the complex.
"We will have, bar none, the biggest and best walking track in this area," Bryant said.
In other action, the council passed an ordinance adopting a planning area boundary for the city.
The council also approved two requests from citizens which had come through the Planning Commission. Denny Jarratt was requesting an eight-foot variance to build a carport at 233 Virginia Circle. Bill and Jeanne Boschert were requesting a conditional use permit to place a modular building a Lot 14, McCutchen Addition to be used as an alternative school.
Bryant said that Ricky and Alice Kellum and Thomas and Jennifer Hughes, who had requested a rezoning of 1509 and 1527 Division from residential to commercial, asked to be taken off Tuesday's agenda.
In other business, Code Enforcement Officer Chester Crossen presented 23 properties in town for condemnation under Act 80 of 1983.
While the list of properties was being studied, Alderman Cecil Twillie commented that there were some properties he would like to see on the list that weren't there.
"Would you like for me to turn you in 100 at once?" said Crossen, drawing laughter.
"Yes, sir," said Twillie, also laughing.
The properties include 488 W. Sharp Street, 108 W. Day, 141 Brandon, 303 W. Davis, 418 Lombardy, 1451 Newcastle Rd., an old garage at the north end of Stewart Street, a shotgun house across from 125 W. Davis, 508 Davidson Lane, 412 E. Davis, 2116 Williams, 2138 Williams, 142 W. Day, 150/152 E. Day, an old house behind 119 W. Midway, 1212 Purifoy, 627 W. Scott, 111, 113 and 115 West Broadway, 233 N. Water, 744 N. Izard, 1106 E. Broadway, 2126 Peevy and 1201 Airport Rd.
In other action, a special meeting was called for Thursday, Aug. 12, at 6 p.m., to discuss the final form of a contract to be bid out for a caterer at the civic center.
The turnout was small, but the results were what the Forrest City Area Chamber of Commerce wanted.
Only 822 people bothered to turn out for Tuesday's special election, but they approved, by an unofficial 477-345 margin, the transfer of some solid waste funds to industrial recruitment. Of the 822 ballots cast, 247 were cast early.
The Chamber was requesting that $500,000, over a period of four years ($125,000 a year), be transferred from Forrest City's share of a county-wide solid waste sales tax. The money will go toward industrial recruitment and to hire a recruiter.
Election night went fairly smoothly at the St. Francis County Courthouse, even though the computer was having problem with ballots. Bettye Proctor of the St. Francis County Election Commission said she thought the room might have been too hot.
"I thought all this was going to be a breeze and we'd all be home by 8 o'clock," quipped Proctor. The polls closed at 7:30 p.m.
Actually, it didn't take much longer than that. Some of the smaller boxes were hand-counted, while the computer finally got the Forrest City boxes counted. The unofficial results were announced at around 9 p.m.
Although precinct-by-precinct totals were not available, during the hand-counting it became evident that the measure did much better in Forrest City than it did out in the county. Most voters outside Forrest City apparently voted against the measure, but in such small numbers it did not matter.
One official reasoned that the negative vote in the county could have been because people did not understand that the election was not over a new tax. Plus, the vote only affects Forrest City, but the entire county had to vote on it because it deals with funds from an existing county-wide tax.
Randy Pearson, president of the Chamber, who had made a presentation to the quorum court requesting the special election, was out of town and could not be reached this morning.
The filing period for city council seats in Caldwell, Madison, Hughes, Colt and Palestine ended at noon today, but a few new filings were available this morning from the St. Francis County Clerk's office.
In Widener, two incumbents are seeking reelection to their positions. Felicia A. Watson will again seek the District 1, Position 5 seat on the Widener City Council, and Lillian Williams is running again for the clerk/treasurer position.
Another incumbent, Randy Hefner, will seek to retain his Ward 2, Position 1 seat on the Colt City Council
Two challengers have filed in other cities. The Hughes City Council Ward 3, Position 2 seat will be sought by Levi Glasper. In Palestine, Cappi Vaughn is seeking election to the city clerk's position.
There is still time for those wanting to file for positions on the Forrest City, Hughes and Palestine-Wheatley school boards. Filing for these positions will close at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 9