LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock city directors were at odds Tuesday over an idea to repeal a 17-year-old resolution that locked them in to not widening Chenal Parkway with city money.
Although several city directors said it was time to repeal the resolution, others questioned the need to repeal the document or said the roadway passing by many of the city’s retail chains and gated communities shouldn’t benefit from the new sales tax that goes into effect next month.
“We still have open ditches, no curbs or gutters and we still are living on county roads built before we were annexed in,” said City Director B.J. Wyrick, who represents part of southwest Little Rock. “I see my area competing for dollars with this particular road and I’m concerned about that.”
The proposed repeal comes as city directors gear up to meet with residents about how they think $72 million in anticipated salestax revenue over the next decade should be spent on street and drainage repairs. The sales-tax increase voters approved in September is expected to raise $36 million a year for general operations and $196 million over a decade for capital projects, including road construction and new fire and police stations.
City Director Joan Adcock proposed repealing the resolution ahead of those meetings.
“Why would we go out to Lance’s neighborhood and say we’re not going to treat you fairly?” Adcock told board members, referring to Ward 5 Director Lance Hines, who represents neighborhoods out west along Chenal Parkway.
No widening has been proposed or is under consideration, city officials say, and the resolution doesn’t prohibit the city from mak- ing repairs to the parkway.
But Hines said the resolution, which committed to keeping the parkway as a four-lane road instead of the six lanes called for in the city’s master street plan, has been used to question the city paying for street lights or any other improvements on the road.
Hines said his constituents “feel like they’re not treated as part of the city. They’re the ‘people out in west Little Rock.’”
Repealing the resolution “would make everyone in my ward feel like they’re being included with what happens with the sales tax,” Hines said.
Adcock, the only board member remaining from when the resolution was passed, said the pledge came up as residents were concerned the city would spend most of its then-new 1993 sales-tax revenue on improving the road. Developers were also concerned at the time that the city wanted more right of way than they were willing to give. The resolution was seen as a compromise for all involved because it said the city would maintain the four lanes, which allowed for smaller rights of way than a six-lane road would have.
The May 3, 1994, resolution says its intent was “to assure that the citizens of Little Rock will not have to involuntarily pay for any expansion or widening of the Chenal Parkway; and for other purposes.”
City directors at the time said if a bond-issue election came up, the project would have to be named specifically so voters had the opportunity to approve spending money on the roadway.
In years since then, developers have paid for improvements along the roadway, such as the turn lanes near the Kroger supermarket at Chenal Parkway and Kanis Road and a stoplight at the Wal-Mart store at Arkansas 10 and Chenal Parkway.
Most of the city’s growth over the past decade has taken place west of Interstate 430.
Part of what is called Chenal Parkway today was paid for with bonds issued by a property owners improvement district in 1988. The city contributed $1.2 million toward the $8.3 million project cost to pay for the roadway between Autumn and Bowman roads. The construction project linked Interstate 630 to what was then Rock Creek Parkway and eventually connects to Arkansas 10.
Even if the city repeals the resolution, developers would still have to pay for road improvements along their properties if undertaking any new construction project under Little Rock’s street boundary ordinance.
“In my view, it doesn’t seem fair for the people who have invested in west Little Rock to say we’re not going to spend city money on a city street,” said City Director Stacy Hurst, who represents older neighborhoods of the city in the Heights and Hillcrest.
Despite there not being any proposal for road work in sight, City Director Erma Hendrix, who represents downtown neighborhoods in Ward 1, said she thought the roadway should be excluded from any projects paid for by the new sales tax.
The roadway was pulled from one previous sales-tax campaign because of the resolution.
Several turn lanes were proposed for Chenal Parkway as part of a 1 percent sales-tax increase proposed in 1999, but Adcock pulled them out after the resolution was mentioned. That sales-tax proposal failed at the polls.
City Director Ken Richardson, whose Ward 2 stretches from 12th Street to southwest Little Rock, said he thought the city should study its western growth issues before making the case for a repeal of the resolution. He brought up concerns about development near Lake Maumelle, the region’s source for drinking water just outside the city’s western limits, and questioned why the resolution needed to be repealed now.
“If we’re able to do repairs, what is the rationale for us in repealing this?” he asked several times.
The repeal will be on the board’s agenda next week when it meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/14/2011