By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
State election officials decided this week to subpoena records from the St. Francis County Election Commission that they have been requesting for more than two months.
According to an Associated Press story, the state Board of Election Commissioners announced plans to subpoena the records that the commission originally requested in May. According to Susie Stormes, Director of the State Election Commission, the decision was made to issue the subpoena after the county commission failed to reply to a pair of requests, the first on May 24, and the second, on June 10.
"We made our first request on May 24, and received some of the information that we had requested. On June 10, we made a Freedom of Information request via certified letter to all three of the election commissioners asking for the information that had not been provided along with some new information. To date, we have received no response from the county commission to that letter," Stormes said.
St. Francis County Election Commissioner Bettye Proctor was not available this morning but told reporters earlier in the week that the commission was having difficulty providing the records after the records were moved when the election commission's office at the County Courthouse was closed. According to the Associated Press, Proctor said that the records had been moved to the county clerk's office and were not accessible. St. Francis County Clerk Elizabeth Smith disputed that claim this morning saying, "Since those records were moved into the vault Florence Brown (the Republican representative on the commission) had been the only commissioner to come in and inspect the records. No one else has been up to go through anything and as a matter of fact most of the records were moved back down to their office last week. The only thing that remains in the vault are the ballots and the information that must be turned over to my office by law," Smith said.
St. Francis County Election Coordinator Judy Armstrong said this morning that the difficulty in getting to the records has been due to time constraints.
"We all have full-time jobs and can't get over there before 5 p.m. and the clerk's office is closed by then. Even if we were able to get over there, before everything was moved it was stacked so high and paced in so tight that there wasn't enough room to get in the cage and move around to go through everything," Armstrong said.
St. Francis County Judge Carl Cisco was unsure how the move in offices would have affected the commission's ability to access its records.
"I don't see how us moving them would have affected anything that the state asked for. The clerk had all of the information in a secured area and they could have come and inspected it at any time," Cisco said.
According to Stormes some information was received recently by the state commission after Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, who is chairman of the State Election Commission, sent his public relations director to St. Francis County to retrieve the information.
"A lot of information was provided by the commission, but only a small amount of it covered the requested items," Stormes said.
If the county commission does not comply with the subpoena, the commission could be held in contempt of court by a circuit judge or the state commission could call for a public hearing where the board would be required to answer questions from the commission.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
Education was the main purpose of L'Anguille Watershed Day, held Thursday at the Caldwell city park.
A good crowd turned out to see 22 separate exhibits and talk to experts on aquatic habitat, soil and water conservation, not to mention listening to music and eating catfish.
Pat Perry with the St. Francis County Conservation district said the efforts to save the L'Anguille River go back to 1998.
"In 1998, the EPA declared the L'Anguille impaired for recreation or any other type of use," said Perry. "When a river is declared in that condition, there are things the EPA can and will do, eventually."
She said those in the Conservation district wanted local people to be involved in the decisions, so projects were started to find ways to improve the watershed.
"We've really involved the agricultural community up to this point, but this day is to involve everybody in it. It's just an awareness day," said Perry, who added that many people don't know what a watershed is.
That led to the obvious question, what is a watershed?
"It's an area of land that drains to a specific point in a body of water," she explained. "this watershed starts at the highest point in Crowley's Ridge and flows westward. In this county, if you live anywhere this side of Goodwin, your water will pretty much flow back toward the L'Anguille."
She said the watershed starts at Jonesboro in Craighead County, comes down through Poinsett and St Francis counties, and continues on south into Lee County, "and dumps into the St. Francis."
"A lot of people don't understand that they do live in a watershed," added Shirley Ball, with the Cross County Conservation District in Wynne, another organizer of the event.
"People think they have to live right on the river or adjacent to the river to be in the watershed. However, a watershed encompasses a lot of miles. It's important that people become aware that they live in this watershed."
Applications for the Bertha Owens Memorial Single Parent Scholarship will be taken beginning Monday, Aug. 2, and continuing through Friday, Aug. 6, at the St. Francis County Community Development Corp. office, located at 500 S. Rosser.
The times will be 9 a.m. through 11:30 a.m. For more information, call 870-630-9131.
A total of 154 St. Francis County voters had taken advantage of early voting as of this morning. St. Francis County Clerk Elizabeth Smith stated she feels this early voting period has gone well.
"I am very pleased with the turnout," said Smith. "I want to remind voters that Monday will be the last day to early vote."
Early voting will be held for two more days, today and Monday, in the SFC Clerk's office from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.
Voters will decide on Tuesday, Aug. 3 whether or not Forrest City will be allowed to transfer $125,000 of its portion of the countywide solid waste tax to the Forrest City Area Chamber of Commerce to be used for industrial recruitment and to hire an executive director. The $125,000 would be given to the Chamber for four years. Taxes will not increase if this measure passes.
Irene Combs will seek the Position 6 seat on the Hughes School Board, according to a filing at the St. Francis County Courthouse.
Those who are seeking city council positions in Caldwell, Madison, Hughes, Colt and Palestine must file by Wednesday, Aug. 4, at the St. Francis County Clerk's office. The deadline those wishing to serve on any of the areas school boards is Monday, Aug. 9