Missing Mayor Joe Smith and three aldermen Monday evening, the North Little Rock City Council took the unusual action to move forward with an emergency drainage repair project without having enough votes to formally approve its funding.
The project is to replace a storm drain affected by a large sinkhole in the 4200 block of Glenmere Road, where Glenmere runs into Fairway Avenue. The $24,590 job was originally approved June 12 by the City Council.
The new legislation was to authorize waiving formal bidding to add $75,000 to the repair cost because further damage was found once work had begun, City Engineer Chris Wilbourn told the council. Wilbourn said an additional, and larger, drainage pipe was discovered once work began that "is in worse shape" than the pipe that was to be repaired.
The predicament Monday was that with only five council members present, motions to suspend the rules and move the ordinance to second and third readings to allow for a vote wasn't possible. Such motions require two-thirds of the council's approval, or six votes.
In a voice vote, the aldermen present directed that the work proceed because of the emergency nature of the repairs, with the ordinance to come back at the next meeting July 10 to approve funding.
"This is just an expression of intent, just something that needs to be recorded," City Attorney Jason Carter said.
Carter said that the mayor -- or in this case, Chief of Staff Danny Bradley, in Smith's absence -- can direct emergency work to proceed, with the understanding that formal authorization of funds from the council would come at a later time. Smith was out-of-state at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C.
In a letter to the council, Bradley said the project "remains an emergency corrective action." Bradley added that, in the mayor's absence, that he would order the work to continue as an emergency, pending the expected council approval later.
"If we leave this until our next council meeting, we don't know what will happen," Ward 1 Alderman Debi Ross said of the damaged pipelines. The drainage pipes are in her ward. "This is not an approval [for funding]. This is approval to keep working."
T.D. Sims Company of Jacksonville had submitted the low bid for the project and is to continue the repairs.
Metro on 06/27/2017