Maumelle City Council members voted Tuesday night to appoint G.K. Timmons to fill a vacated Ward 3 alderman's position, an addition of a black woman to a council with seven white men.
Timmons, who prefers to go by her last name, won the spot with five votes of the remaining City Council members. The only other applicants -- former Ward 3 Alderman Burch Johnson and Andrew Fong, chemist for the Food and Drug Administration's Arkansas Regional Laboratory -- each received one vote.
Aldermen voted by signed ballots that were released to the media after voting concluded. Timmons was then sworn in and took her seat on the eight-member board.
The position became vacant last month when Alderman Marion Scott resigned from the City Council because she moved out of Ward 3. Timmons is to serve the remainder of Scott's term, which runs through 2018. Aldermen are paid $250 per meeting.
"There needs to be different insights," Timmons said of adding racial diversity to the board. "I think a lot of folks will get more involved because of it."
Timmons' appointment also adds a bit of a conflict on the City Council because she is under contract as manager of the city-owned Park on the River events center and has pushed for the city to have a larger events center to be able to attract bigger groups to hold conferences and other activities in Maumelle. Timmons is chief executive officer of Team Summit, an event management company, and vice president of the nonprofit Timmons Arts Foundation that manages Park on the River.
City Attorney Caleb Norris said after the meeting that he was already preparing to draft an ordinance for the next City Council meeting to allow that contract to continue. A city alderman is prohibited from holding a contract with the city unless authorized by an ordinance approved by a vote of the City Council, Norris said.
Timmons said she could remain impartial on any related issues and didn't see that her city contract would be a conflict of interest.
"I rent it [the center] from them," Timmons said. "I pay rent, I pay [utilities] and give them a part of the rental revenue. I don't foresee any problems with that. If so, we'll tackle it then."
Timmons said during her public interview at the meeting that she pays the city 25 percent of all rental revenue.
During her interview, she was asked by Alderman Steve Mosley about any conflicts of interest in general.
"I think we all have something that is a conflict," she answered. "You just have to step back when it's time to vote. I think it shows a commitment to the community if you're involved in something in the community."
Timmons previously served as a member of the former board of directors under a city manager form of government. Maumelle voters approved a change to a mayor-council form of government in 2001 when "we got kicked off," as Timmons said.
Timmons ran for the same Ward 3 position in the 2014 election, but lost to Scott.
Metro on 07/06/2016