LITTLE ROCK — A once-blighted southwest Little Rock motel can reopen immediately, a Pulaski County circuit judge ruled Wednesday after chiding city officials for apparently deliberately delaying action to allow resumption of business at the site.
Judge Wendell Griffen said he is considering sanctions against the city of Little Rockfor not moving sooner to see that the Heritage House Inn on South University Avenue could reopen once the motel’s owners fulfilled their obligations to the court.
The city’s failure to act promptly could be considered a breach of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure, Griffen told the lawyers at Wednesday’s hearing.
The judge shuttered theHeritage House Inn in March based on city complaints that the 102-room hostelry continually failed to meet city safety and building standards.
Griffen barred the motel from resuming operations until city officials agreed it was up to code.
Motel owner Gurmeet “George” Nerhan of Arizona was fined $1,000 - the maximum fine - in August forcontempt of court for allowing the motel to accept new residents before getting approval from city inspectors and the court.
Nerhan could have been sent to jail for six months. City officials presented evidence that the motel had allowed people to take rooms two days after Griffen ordered the motel evacuated and closed.
The motel had been undercity supervision at the order of the court since 2005.
City officials petitioned in March for a forced closure and cleanup of the property after a man was robbed and murdered at the motel in January and a 5-year-old girl was abandoned in a filthy room in February.
But Griffen heard Wednesday that city officials have known for at least the pastthree weeks that Heritage House has been sufficiently renovated to meet city safety and building codes.
The motel owner had to petition the judge to get the city to acknowledge his motel complied with all codes.
In that filing two weeks ago, Nerhan’s attorney, Danny Crabtree, complained that unnamed city officials haddemanded improvements beyond those required by either city code or court order.
In the Dec. 6 filing, Crabtree estimated that the motel had been compliant with the city’s demands for at least a month.
He reported that Nerhan had installed a gate requested by the city, even though it was not required by any city code. But that was not enough to get the city to sign off on an agreement that would allow Heritage House to reopen, he said.
“I was frustrated trying to satisfy the city,” Crabtree said Wednesday.
Diving into the vernacular of his youth, Griffen said Little Rock had apparently been deliberately “dragging its feet.”
“In Pike County, where I come from, that sounds like somebody is messing with somebody ... and using the court process to get that done,” the judge said. “A delay of three weeks ... comes troublingly close to the court’s understanding of needless delay and harassment,” barred by civil-procedure rules.
Griffen said he was concerned that city’s “apparent intransigence” forced Nerhan to incur additional legal and travel expenses to attend a court hearing that wasn’t necessary, and he questioned why the city hadn’t simply submitted an agreed order acknowledging Heritage House had complied with city codes.
City attorney Clifford Sward said he didn’t have the authority to enter into such an agreement.
Representing a “corporate client” like the city made getting those permissions difficult, Sward told the judge, apologizing for the delay.
Crabtree praised Sward’s efforts to resolve the issue but said the problem was with someone “above his pay grade.”
Sward had done nothing to be sorry for, Griffen said, adding that the people who were at fault were not in the courtroom.
“Somebody owes you [Sward] an apology, and they’re not going to give one,” Griffen said. “Somebody owes Mr. Nerhan an apology, somebody owes the [city] employees an apology and somebody owes the court an apology, but they’re not going to give it.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/20/2012