LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock city officials and staff members wrapped up two weeks of meetings this week that took them to each of the city’s seven wards in search of drainage and street projects.
The meetings were the first step in creating a list of priority projects to be funded with the more than $65 million in uncommitted revenue expected from the capitalimprovements portion of the citywide sales tax increase that started in January.
With flooded street corners and potholes on residents’ minds, city officials also used the opportunity to promote the Sept. 11 millage election to fund additional capital-improvement projects. The election will come a year after the voter referendum on the city’s sales-tax increase.
All seven ward meetings were attended by dozens of residents, some with long lists of projects, filling meeting rooms at churches, libraries and community centers.
“I live north of [Daisy Gatson Bates Drive] in an area where we have no drainage,” said Carrie Young. “We’ve been told there are no funds.”
Young, who lives in Ward 1, said she has been dealing with her street flooding several times a year, damaging property and making travel and living conditions sometimes unbearable.
“I live here, and I want to see our city beautified, but I feel like the city overlooks us when it comes to making things better,” she said. “We need help. I need help.”
During the Ward 7 meeting, former Little Rock firefighter Bill Lundy pointed out several projects, saying he hopes the city can maximize its money by combining surveying for drainage work that might also be needed on roads they plan to resurface.
“The city is going to resurface the Otter Creek Parkway, but at Stagecoach [Road], the water just pools in the roadway sometimes as high as car doors,” he said. “It seems like a waste of money not to take care of things like that at the same time.”
A recurring theme at the meetings — particularly in wards with older infrastructure or greater need for road repairs — was whether money not spent in certain wards with newer streets would be reallocated if it was left unused.
Mayor Mark Stodola answered the question at the Ward 7 meeting Wednesday.
“There is an incredible need in every ward for infrastructure and improvements,” he said. “The projects we already have on the needs lists already exceed the funding amounts in every ward.”
The city’s infrastructure needs have stretched to almost $800 million worth of repaving, drainage, traffic-light and sidewalk work.
While Wards 4 and 5 are in the city’s newer sections of west Little Rock, project needs still outpace the money allocated through the sales tax.
Stodola said that’s part of the reason the city is trying to renew the millage.
The capital-improvements millage has existed in Little Rock since 1958, with periodic voter renewal. The city is asking voters to approve a reduced millage from the current 3.3 mills to 3.0 mills and extend the property tax by 15 years.
A mill is one-tenth of a cent, with each mill producing $1 in tax revenue for each $1,000 in taxable property.
For a house valued at $100,000, the millage extension would add up to $60 a year in property tax, a $6 reduction from the current rate. For the median house value in Little Rock — $154,200 — the millage would translate to $92.52, a reduction of $9.25 from the current rate.
If passed, the millage would raise $105 million to pay for street and drainage work. Each ward would receive about $13.5 million, and city-wide projects would receive $10.5 million.
The millage would expire in 2013, if voters don’t approve the extension.
According to the ballot wording passed out at the ward meetings, 70 percent of the revenue would be used for street resurfacing and 30 percent would be used for drainage projects.
The Little Rock Board of Directors has not decided whether the city will spend the entire $105 million right away if the millage is approved. However, City Manager Bruce Moore said a large amount of the millage money will be spent early on and residents will see more projects on the priorities list completed sooner than if the millage extension is not approved.
Not everyone was in favor of the additional tax. Several community activists who opposed the 2011 sales tax increase, under the name “$500 Million Tax — Too Much,” said they planned to oppose the millage election, as well.
Activist Robert Webb spoke at the Ward 1 and Ward 2 meetings, raising concerns that the city had not divided the sales tax money so that the wards with older infrastructure received more funding.
“Wards 1, 2, 6 and 7 have greater infrastructure needs, yet we’re splitting the money evenly with Wards 4 and 5, which have newer streets,” Webb said at the Ward 1 meeting.
“At some point, this $21 million is like throwing good money after bad. In 10 or 15 years the same issues are going to come up again. I can’t support this, and I want to be the first to say that I’m forming opposition to defeat this.”
Webb said the city chose a bad time to ask residents for more money.
He cited the new city sales tax, the state’s plan to ask for a sales tax increase for highway projects and Pulaski Technical College’s plan to seek a new millage. College representatives said earlier this summer that the school is still researching the potential 1- to 3-mill tax, but no date for an election has been set.
Stodola said he doesn’t understand the opposition because the millage is a progressive tax, meaning residents who own more property will pay more tax.
“This is one of the fairest ways to do this. If your property is worth more, then you’ll be paying more,” he said. “There are so many outstanding needs, and it costs roughly $100,000 to resurface just 1 mile of street.”
Moore led the meetings over the past two weeks, explaining the breakdown of the sales tax money to residents and instructing them on the next steps in prioritizing the projects.
About $1 million in drainage projects and $3.8 million in road resurfacing were approved in February for the 2012 construction season. The city has a little more than $65 million of additional anticipated sales tax revenue to divide among the wards.
The Board of Directors voted to dedicate 10 percent of the revenue to a quick-action fund. City staff members will be able to use that money to fund projects that need immediate attention because of safety issues, or for projects that cover more than one ward, such as repaving a thoroughfare like Markham Street or University Avenue.
The remaining money will be divided evenly among the wards, with $8.4 million allocated to each area in three, three-year funding cycles.
The capital-projects portion of the tax will expire in 2021.
The first round of meetings was held to determine the projects that will be funded in 2013-15, which will be about $2.6 million per ward.
“Not every project will be on the list or will be a priority once the full lists are compiled,” Moore said.
“But there are some things like missing speed signs ... or small curb projects ... that can be taken care of by calling the city’s 311 line out of the general budget not this larger pot of money, so we want to know about all of the projects that residents are concerned about.”
Residents can pick up project request forms, which are due back to the city by Aug. 31, in person, or they can fill one out on the city’s website.
City staff members will then review the suggested projects, compare them with the existing list of infrastructure needs and prepare a potential list of projects for a second round of meetings with the public in October or November. Moore said the meetings would include cost estimates for the projects.
Based on cost estimates, staff assessments and public input in the second round of meetings, city staff members will come up with a list of funding priorities in each ward.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 08/05/2012