Correction: Anita Belotti Wagner is the mother of Kristy Eanes, who is helping lead an effort to incorporate the Little Italy community of Pulaski County into a town. This article misspelled Wagner's middle name.
Leaders of the northwest Pulaski County community of Little Italy submitted 235 signatures to the county clerk Wednesday morning petitioning for the 100-year-old community to become Arkansas' 502nd incorporated town.
Organizers needed only 200 signatures, but the signatures will now have to go through the clerk's office for verification against the county's records of registered voters in the area.
If enough signatures are verified, a public hearing will be scheduled on the matter. Barry Hyde, the county judge of Pulaski County, then will hear the case in county court.
Little Italy extends into Perry County, but leaders are pursuing incorporation only in Pulaski County, where the bulk of the community's residents live. Little Italy Incorporation Task Force co-Chairman Chris Dorer estimated that the town would have about 380 residents. About 300 people in the area are registered voters, making them eligible to sign the petition.
Residents want to become a town to preserve the historical nature of the community by creating historic districts, Dorer said, and to improve services in the area that they feel county government inadequately provides, such as road maintenance.
"There are so many things that we could offer," he said.
Running a town would come with challenges, Dorer said. Chiefly: Getting it started.
Dorer, 33, said community leaders would work with the Arkansas Municipal League to establish the town.
Municipal League Executive Director Don Zimmerman said coordinating road services and setting up sewer and trash services would be big challenges in such a spread out community.
He said the town may not be required by the Arkansas Department of Health to establish a sewer system because of its low density. Homes in the area now use septic tanks.
Denver Peacock, a spokesman representing the community, said Waste Management would continue to provide trash collection.
The 7-square-mile area that would be incorporated rests on Wye Mountain near Lake Maumelle, nearly an hour's drive from downtown Little Rock. It's found along tall trees; steep, winding roads with caution signs; and speed limits as low as 10 miles per hour.
"They're going to have a difficult time having sufficient financial or tax base to support a good level of municipal services," Zimmerman said. "So they're probably still going to have to depend on the county a good deal."
Little Italy leaders have been planning to work out an arrangement for continued police service from the sheriff's office.
Dorer said state turnback funds also would help the town afford road services.
Turnback funds for roads would amount to $65 per person in the town, or about $24,700, Zimmerman said, which wouldn't take the town very far.
A proposed plan for an incorporated Little Italy includes income estimates of county tax collection, county road tax collection and state municipal aid of $36,642.85. After expenditures for utilities, repairs, labor, supplies and insurance, the end-of-year balance would be $14,742.85, if town personnel were volunteers and not paid employees.
Some counties, Zimmerman said, provide labor to towns for road services if the towns provide the resources. Such an arrangement could be discussed in Pulaski County.
Proponents of incorporation have stressed the increased organization the community would have in working with other governments on improving road conditions in the area.
A post on the Little Italy community's Facebook page Feb. 23 shows images of Arkansas 300 covered in a layer of ice and layer of snow.
"Despite the roads in Little Rock being in good condition this morning, Hwy. 300 in Little Italy was covered in ice and snow," the post reads. "Though according to Director [of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department] Scott Bennett, 'Crews were out there through the night last night and are continuing to work it today.' No crews came through last night, or the roads would not have looked like this at 7 am. No crews were in the area today, either. This is the type of local control a municipality would offer us. Our local government could be in direct contact with the AHTD to ensure service to our area."
Highway Department spokesman Danny Straessle said Arkansas 300 is not one of the first roads the department clears in a storm because of its lower traffic levels. Only a few hundred cars per day travel the highway near Little Italy, compared with 8,000 vehicles per day at its intersection with Arkansas 10 just south of Pinnacle Mountain.
Pulaski County's acting Road and Bridge Department Director John Burton said the department has treated the Little Italy area just as it would treat any other area of unincorporated Pulaski County. Interim Public Works Director Barbara Richard said, however, that most of the roads in Little Italy are not county roads but state highways and private roads, which the county wouldn't maintain except after a major storm.
Dorer and fellow task force co-Chairman Kristy Eanes have been working for a year to gather the signatures needed for incorporation.
No organized opposition has emerged.
Dorer said the selling point for residents was the promise of increased services in the area. Although the town could exempt itself from Lake Maumelle watershed zoning by incorporating, Dorer acknowledged, "that was an issue that really didn't come up for us."
After 89-year-old Olga Dal Santo -- the last first-generation Italian born to parents who settled in Little Italy -- handed over the petition, Eanes teared up and began hugging the handful of friends and family members who came out to commemorate the occasion.
"I can't believe it," said Eanes, hugging her mom, Anita Belogni Wagner.
"You did it, honey," her mom said.
Eanes, 44, is a great-granddaughter of the area's first Italian settlers. She's a Little Rock resident now but said Wednesday that she and her husband just closed on a house in Little Italy and plan to move back to where she was raised.
Dal Santo moved back to Little Italy after spending 21 years in Little Rock, where her husband, John, was a firefighter. When he retired, they moved back to Little Italy, where they are about to celebrate their 73rd wedding anniversary.
They love the community, but Dal Santo complained that the county doesn't act quickly enough when storms leave debris on the roadways, particularly Ghidotti Road, the county road she lives along.
"We need help," she said.
Roger Quaid, a resident and business owner in Little Italy who served on the Lake Maumelle Watershed Task Force with Eanes and Dorer, echoed the need for improved services.
"I moved out there to be in the country, but I want to be in a town, too," he said, acknowledging that some people may find that to be contradictory.
Eanes introduced Quaid, 56, to the incorporation effort while they both served on the watershed task force, which reviewed the county's zoning code in the watershed. But he said the zoning code is not why he joined the movement.
"I can see the lake from my house, and I want to keep it as clean as I can," he said.
If approved by Hyde, Little Italy would become the first new town in Arkansas since Southside in 2014 and the first new town in Pulaski County since Maumelle was incorporated in 1985.
Southside is not officially a city yet, said Robert T. Griffin, the county judge of Independence County, but will be in August after it holds elections to vote for mayor, recorder, treasurer and City Council.
Metro on 05/14/2015