LITTLE ROCK — The Pulaski County Quorum Court voted 14-0 Tuesday night to spend $220,000 to establish the county's first-ever morgue.
One justice of the peace, Pat Dicker, abstained from voting.
The money will be used for the design and renovation of a vacant county-owned building at 3201 S. Maple St., and will give the county coroner his own place to examine and store bodies rather than relying on the availability of hospital examining rooms or the occasional spare room in a funeral home, as has been the county's decades-long practice.
Coroner Garland Camper has said the new facility would provide a chapel or lounge for family members and a closed-circuit television for the relatives' identifications of bodies.
Camper said he examines about 3,200 bodies each year.
He told Quorum Court members he needed a county morgue now, after the county's budget had already been approved, because hewas being kicked out of the hospital morgues at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Baptist Health Medical Center, both in Little Rock, a claim hospital representatives have publicly denied.
Hospital staff, however, have documented concerns about the county's use of their space.
In October 2008, UAMS morgue supervisor Mike Davis wrote in an e-mail to Camper that he found sticks, straw and smeared blood on the floor of the autopsy room when he came to work, something that could result in the closure of the facility if discovered by accreditation agencies.
The vote Tuesday came after two county residents protested the location of the morgue.
Dan Lauderdale, who lives about a half-block away from where the morgue will be set up, said he was worried about his family living so close to the morgue and the impact it could have on his roofing business, which he also operates nearby.
A friend and architect who is helping Lauderdale plan an expansion to his home also spoke, asking members to be considerate of Lauderdale's family.
"I know you've got to do this. I know the county needs a facility of this type. I ask that you respect that family," said Terry Burruss.
Camper said the transfer of bodies to and from the morgue will take place in a covered area of the building. Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines also said he would work with Lauderdale to try and resolve some of the issues, possibly by screening the facility with landscaping and fencing.
Dicker, the justice of the peace who abstained from voting, said she did so in part because she felt a specific solution addressing Lauderdale's concerns should have been presented to the Quorum Court before it gave its approval.
She said she also wanted specifics about oversight of the morgue, given the maintenance issue raised in the e-mail by UAMS.
"I'd like to feel comfortable about it," she said, adding that she didn't want to object outright to establishing a morgue because she agrees that it is needed.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 04/29/2009