The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department now has a seat on the committee that will recommend a new leader for central Arkansas' long-range transportation planning agency.
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The board of directors for Metroplan voted to add a 10th member to the search committee that will find a successor to longtime Executive Director Jim McKenzie. McKenzie and his top deputy, Richard Magee, are retiring at the end of the year. Together, they represent 70 years of experience with the agency.
The department's regular representative on the board, Jessie Jones, asked to be on the committee after the nine members of the search committee were announced at last month's board meeting.
The size of the search committee was decided at a board retreat in March, with members agreeing with a consultant's recommendation that it have no more than nine members from the agency's 33-member board.
The committee initially included the four members of the board's executive committee: Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher, president; Ward Mayor Art Brooke, vice president; Bryant Mayor Jill Dabbs, secretary; and County Judge Jim Baker of Faulkner County, treasurer.
The executive committee met before the April board meeting and agreed to add to the committee Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola, North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith, County Judge Barry Hyde of Pulaski County, County Judge Jeff Arey of Saline County and Mayflower Mayor Randy Holland, the board's previous president.
The committee's makeup was "trying to balance the little guys and the big guys, the cities and the counties," McKenzie said at the time.
Jones raised the issue of Highway Department representation near the end of the board meeting and said she had previously expressed interest in participating. At that point, she renewed her request.
McKenzie said he initially balked at the idea of adding Jones because the department representative, as well as Rock Region Metro representative, are special members under the agency bylaws and are allowed to vote on transportation issues only.
Metroplan was formed as a regional coordinating agency in the 1950s, and since 1972 has been the federally designated metropolitan planning agency for the region.
Its monthly agenda typically separates transportation items from its regular business.
Jones said transportation items are often the biggest on the board's agenda every month, and the department, as well as Rock Region Metro, are signatories to many of the agreements the board must have with the federal government.
Having a seat on the search committee would help the department in "making sure we all have an executive director that would work well and understand" the department's role on the board, she said at the time.
Smith and Hyde endorsed Jones having a seat on the committee and set up Wednesday's vote.
The board's search consultant, the Mercer Group, has begun advertising for a new executive director, McKenzie said. Resumes are due June 17. The search committee should expect a preliminary report on applicants by the end of June and expect to interview candidates in July, he said.
Metro on 05/26/2016