The Pulaski County Quorum Court recommended Tuesday night using $200,000 total in funds from two different county sources to replace the Higgins Community Center building, which some say is too run down to continue operating.
“It’s well overdue,” We Care of Pulaski County Director Pat Jackson said after the meeting. We Care is a nonprofit that operates many of the activities at the community center.
The community center operates just off Arkansas 365 and Higgins Switch Road and is host to after-school and summer youth programs, food donations, fish fries, emergency shelter, family reunions, weddings, senior citizen activities and workshops, among other things, for the Higgins, Woodson and Hensley communities in southeast Pulaski County.
County Judge Buddy Villines told the Quorum Court that the Arkansas Department of Health has declared the community center’s kitchen to be out of compliance with health codes. Community Services Director La Verne Paige said before the meeting that the buckled, water-damaged floors have made getting around difficult for people in wheelchairs and precarious for children. In addition, the bathrooms are not accessible for people in wheelchairs.
Paige said the building is more than 50 years old and because of that may also have asbestos and lead paint, which were not banned until after the building was constructed.
Rain seeping in through the leaky roof has resulted in mold and the potential for health problems, Paige said.
The cost of reconstruction is estimated at $400,000. The county would contribute $100,000 from its capital maintenance and technology reserve fund and $100,000 from unappropriated general fund money.
Unappropriated money in the general fund totals about $205,000, and the capital maintenance and technology reserve fund has about $500,000. Each are mostly made up of carryover funds from revenue not spent last year.
The Pulaski County Public Facilities Board has promised $200,000 if the Quorum Court matches that amount.
The Quorum Court voted 13-0 Tuesday night in favor of recommending the match for a full vote in two weeks at its final April meeting.
District 9 Justice of the Peace Wilma Walker, a Democrat whose district includes Higgins, was lead sponsor of the agenda item but was absent from Tuesday’s meeting for health reasons. District 12 Justice of the Peace Karilyn Brown, a Republican, abstained from the vote after questioning whether the county would be establishing a precedent of funding operations of other community centers and suggested tearing the building down and never replacing it.
Villines and other justices of the peace stressed that the Higgins Community Center is the only community center under the county’s jurisdiction, that the county is required to maintain its facilities and that the funds are one-time expenses for building the facility, not for operating it.
Several justices of the peace also emphasized the need for a community center in the largely poor area, including District 15 Justice of the Peace Shane Stacks, a Republican, who said the center served a need that was perhaps even greater than what it could provide.
“Former President [Jimmy] Carter recently said we are a Christian nation, so we should give to the poor … I’m very glad and very proud to support the Higgins Community Center,” said District 4 Justice of the Peace Julie Blackwood.
The Quorum Court also approved 13-0 a recommendation that Villines apply for a $50,000 General Improvement Funding grant from the Arkansas Department of Rural Services that would also go toward the center’s construction.
Paige said in a memorandum to Quorum Court coordinator Joy Pensinger that state Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, has already committed the money.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 04/09/2014