A central Arkansas board authorized on Thursday spending more than $120,000 in public funds on a park project spearheaded by the wife of a state representative, partly because that state representative wrote a letter of support for the project.
Julie Mayberry, the wife of state Rep. Andy Mayberry of Hensley, has been looking for ways to comeup with $250,000 needed to qualify for a state Department of Parks and Tourism matching grant so that a fully handicapped-accessible playground can be built in East End and thus become the first public county park in Saline County.
The park would be built on land now owned by the couple and located behind Julie Mayberry’s nonprofit I CAN! Arts and Resource Center - a free facility that offers dance, music and art classes to children with special needs. She said the couple plans to donate the land for the park to the county.
The Mayberrys contend there is a need for the park. Currently a trip to a handicapped-accessible park for their daughter, who is in a wheelchair, requires driving more than two hours to Jonesboro.
Julie Mayberry got the Little Rock South Lions Club, an organization she and her husband are active in, to apply for $124,700 in state “general improvement funds” under the support of six state legislators, including her husband.
The request for the funding went before the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District’s board of directors Thursday morning, which unanimously approved the request, but not before questioning the method by which the matching funds are being obtained. The district gets public money and guides it to projects.
“The overall thing is good. I feel like it’s a good project, but it’s a little unorthodox the way it’s being set up,” said Saline County Judge Lanny Fite, who is a member of the board. “But I understand why they are doing it the way they are. I wish it could be done some other way, but I don’t know. … I’m committed to making sure [the use of the general improvement funds] flows like it should.”
LIMITS ON LAWMAKERS
State lawmakers haven’t been allowed to designate taxpayer funds to a certain project after the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that a decades-old practice of the General Assembly allotting each legislator a share of surplus money to spend on projects in their district violates Amendment 14 of the state constitution, which forbids “local and special” legislation.
So now planning districts categorized by regions in the state dispense the money in a process meant to be competitive in which organizations apply for funding for their proposed projects. The Central Arkansas Planning and Development District - which includes Lonoke, Prairie, Monroe, Faulkner, Pulaski and Saline counties - received about $9.5 million of general improvement funds this year.
But for an applicant to qualify for the money, a state legislator has to send a letter of support for the project. And while the final decision of whether to allocate the funds is up to the planning district board - which is composed of officials from each county it represents - the board generally doesn’t deny legislators’ requests that money be spent on a specific project.
And while Julie Mayberry has noted during her public speeches about the park that funding hinged on planning district board approval, at a Saline County Quorum Court finance meeting Sept. 9, she referred to the state money recommended by certain state legislators as being given or donated by them. At that meeting, she told Quorum Court members that she was upset they voted to table the discussion of designating $25,000 in county emergency funds toward the proposed park.
“I had to figure out very quickly within a weeks time how I was going to make up that $25,000,” she said. “So thank goodness we have some awesome senators. [Rep.] Ann Clemmer gave $4,000. Sen. Alan Clark gave $10,000. [Rep.] Andy Davis did $5,700. [Rep.] Kim Hammer did $5,000.”
Her husband and Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson had both already said they were each willing to “give” $50,000 of general improvement funds toward the park.
All six legislators are Republicans.
LAWMAKER’S SUPPORT
Andy Mayberry said Thursday that he’s always been sure to mention that his support of $50,000 of the funds going toward the park was contingent upon whether the planning district board approved the funds be allocated.
“I guess it’s just one of those things. Did I write a letter of support for this? Am I very, very supportive and public about my support for this? Absolutely yes,” Mayberry said. “But again, I have to look at it like this: If I didn’t know anything else about it, would I be supportive of this? And the answer is absolutely yes. … The board has every opportunity to vote against it. They’re the ones who actually have the final say-so. They are just looking at the projects, and I think often they certainly probably give a lot of deference to the wishes of state representatives and state senators, but it is entirely at their discretion to accept or deny the applications.”
Jacksonville lawyer Mike Wilson, who brought the 2006 lawsuit that the state’s highest court ruled on concerning allocations of surplus money to legislators, said Thursday that the authorizing of funds by planning districts to certain projects at the suggestion of legislators is an attempt to bypass the court’s ruling.
“A single member of the Legislature does not have the privilege of directing where public money goes,” Wilson said by phone. “That’s a perfect demonstration of what the writers of the constitution said was unlawful. It’s an attempt to get around the constitutional provision of local or special acts. And it’s clear that’s what that is.”
Julie Mayberry objected to that idea when asked by phone Thursday to respond to the thought that her husband asking that funds go toward the park project constitutes a special interest.
“We are not doing this for ourselves,” she said. “This is something that’s needed to be done in the state of Arkansas. It is sad that the closest public park for my daughter or any other child in a wheelchair to get to is in Jonesboro 2½ hours away. … Everybody is going to benefit from this and everybody is going to enjoy this. This is not just for our daughter. If there is someone out there who thinks that, come over here and see. If it was just for my daughter, I’d put up something in my own backyard. This is for every child and adults, too - and not just kids in wheelchairs.”
On the application form for the general improvement funds, an applicant must note the district number of the state representative or senator who supports the grant application. But Central Arkansas Planning and Development District Executive Director Rodney Larsen stressed that it is up to the board whether an applicant’s request is granted, not a legislator.
“A legislator doesn’t designate [the funds,]” he said after Thursday’s meeting. “Legislators refer to it in that manner, but in reality the money comes to this board and the board has total authority over who to grant to and how. So [representatives or senators] can’t really dictate that.”
Andy Mayberry, Hutchinson of Little Rock, Davis of Little Rock, Clark of Lonsdale, Hammer of Benton and Clemmer of Benton each wrote letters in support for a certain amount of the funds to go to the Saline County park, and all of those amounts totaled the amount the project was granted by the board Thursday.
‘IT’S ALL UPFRONT’
Larsen said the fact that Mayberry’s wife is the one spearheading the project is not a concern because the couple hasn’t tried to hide that fact.
“It’s all upfront, and everybody knows that that’s how it’s working,” he said. “And that’s the good part about it. We all know about it upfront. And they’re donating the property for the park. And so it’s a worthy cause, and I think when you add it all up … you see there’s not any hidden agenda - not any secret.”
The county has yet to approve the creation of the park or obtain the land, nor is it the one receiving the grants. The Quorum Court approved a resolution allowing the county to apply for the Parks and Tourism Department grant on the Little Rock South Lions Club’s behalf, but justices of the peace have expressed concerns about the park’s upkeep if it were to be built.
If the land is donated to the county, it would be the responsibility of the county, which doesn’t have a parks department, to maintain it.
Quorum Court members are unsure about where the funds to maintain the park would come from.
“That’s one of the issues they are complaining about,” Fite said. “They only way [to maintain the park] would be to bring prisoners out to do a general cleaning once a month. And again, the proposal is to close the park during that time, but it’s a public park, and at some point the prisoners and park visitors will be mixed.
“Another concern the Quorum Court members have had is that this is quite expensive playground equipment, and some day and time it will need to be replaced,” Fite said, adding that “we are one of two counties in the state that does not have a sales tax to operate on.”
When Quorum Court members expressed their concerns to Julie Mayberry at the finance meeting Sept. 9, she suggested that it may be time to look at creating a parks department. She added that she was “very disappointed” that some of them were against designating emergency funds to go toward the matching grant for the park.
“If you have a child that runs and walks, then, no, this is not an emergency. There are parks all over. But if you have a child in a wheelchair …”, she said, her words trailing off. “I don’t believe we need to continue to live in a community like that where those kids get pushed aside.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/20/2013