The state Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request by Greenwood to stay a Sebastian County circuit judge's order striking annexation ordinances from the city's ballot and to hold an expedited review of the ruling.
The court denied the city's motion without comment.
Since the ballots have already been printed with the annexation ordinances included and mailed out to absentee voters, Sebastian County Election Commission Executive Director Suzanne Morgan said Thursday that the annexation votes won't be counted.
She said the commission is tentatively scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the courthouse annex at 40 S. Fourth St., and she believed the annexation issue would be on the agenda.
Greenwood Mayor Doug Kinslow said that because the matter was in litigation he couldn't comment on it, but he was waiting for further developments.
Circuit Judge J. Michael Fitzhugh ruled Oct. 8 that the annexation ordinances derived from a violation of the open meetings provision of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act and should not be included on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Evidence was presented during a hearing Oct. 8 that City Attorney Mike Hamby had contacted City Council members individually to discuss whether the eight parcels of land on the city's borders up for annexation should be put to voters in one question, or whether voters should vote separately on annexing each parcel.
Fitzhugh ruled that Hamby's actions were comparable to the findings in Harris v. City of Fort Smith. In that 2004 case, then-City Administrator Bill Harding had polled city directors individually about the purchase of property, which was ruled to have violated the act.
In Greenwood's motion before the Arkansas Supreme Court to stay the ruling and for expedited review, the attorney representing the city, Mark Hayes of the Arkansas Municipal League, argued that Fitzhugh's ruling was wrong but there was not enough time before the election for the city to go through the normal process of appealing it.
Attorneys for the two property owners who challenged Greenwood's annexation in Circuit Court argued that Greenwood did not preserve its arguments in the hearing before Fitzhugh and was not eligible to take them before the state Supreme Court.
NW News on 10/24/2014