A close vote during a Maumelle special election Tuesday showed a disconnect between residents and city government that some city officials said needs to be mended while voter-approved projects wait months to get underway.
Voters favored a permanent, one-half percent city sales tax for public safety, 1,407-1,248, and barely passed a temporary one-half percent tax, 1,337-1,319, to support a bond issue to build a long-awaited Interstate 40 interchange. Voters rejected a second bond issue for sewer extension into the city's north end, 1,378-1,274.
The "third entrance" interchange, discussed since the mid-1990s, is meant to divert traffic off congested Maumelle Boulevard via a newly extended Counts Massie Road, even if it won't fully "fix" traffic problems as suggested by an election campaign catchphrase.
The day before the election, City Council member Steve Mosley said there appeared to be "lots of apparent distrust of the city leaders for how this proposal was quickly passed through before any public discussion of our loss of apparent [state or federal] funding and what to do about it."
"Maumelle residents are very generous people," Mosley said on election night. "But I think this time it was kind of like 'Hold on.'"
Showing project results and keeping the electorate informed should go a long way toward soothing bad feelings, council member Marion Scott-Coney said later in the week.
"No. 1, we do what we said we were going to do," said Scott-Coney, who was chairman of the Vision for the Future campaign organized through the Maumelle Area Chamber of Commerce. "We make things happen, and we move things forward. And we report on it regularly so people will know we're not a bag of hot air."
Even with no organized group formed to oppose the tax election, social media debates raged as the election drew closer. Scott-Coney -- a longtime community volunteer in Maumelle -- said a few people "pretty much called me a liar" and that "some sarcastic comments" were aimed at supporters.
The dissent came close to shocking city officials. The interchange vote trailed in a heavy early voting turnout, 648-615, though it eventually won the election day vote by an 18-vote margin.
"Everybody I talked to thought it would be 60-40 [margin]," said Mayor Mike Watson, who had to hear election updates long distance because he was at the National League of Cities Congressional City Conference in Washington, D.C., at the time. "When I saw the early vote, I was very concerned. As it turned out, it was 18 votes in favor, but that was a lot closer than I thought it would be."
There's still a bit of anxiety over the apparent victory. There remain 20 absentee ballots and five provisional ballots to be counted, said Bryan Poe, elections director for the Pulaski County Election Commission, leaving a slight chance for the 18-vote winning margin to be erased.
"It's within the realm of possibility," Poe said. "But, based on past elections, there's not that many ballots that come in after election day."
Absentee ballots must be postmarked by election day and received by 10 days afterward, or by Friday in this case. They will be counted March 26, Poe said.
The public safety tax will replace an unpopular $6 per month community service fee charged to every household, which helped support the city's police and fire departments. The fee won't be removed until Sept. 1, however, when tax revenue starts coming in to the city.
The tax collection won't begin until July 1, and there's a two-month lag in the revenue reaching the city, Watson said.
It will be possibly December or January before the interchange construction can be bid out by the Arkansas Department of Transportation, he said. Interchange construction will take 18-24 months, depending on the weather, according to a project timeline. Utilities and fiber-optic cables will first need to be moved from within the right of way, he added.
To counter any pending impatience, Scott-Coney said that "after taking a couple days to rest," election proponents will be back at work to keep residents updated on the project. The interchange was touted to entice more commercial development in the city, a projection supported by the Maumelle City Council's recent approval to annex 240 acres adjacent to the interchange, dependent upon a favorable election vote.
"We're not done," Scott-Coney said. "If people get to see the progress and hear about the progress, they will begin to relax and know there's not any underhanded stuff going on."
Even after a contentious campaign, the success of the two ballot issues pleased her, Scott-Coney said.
"I said all along that this is a very smart population here," she said about Maumelle. "These are people who care about their city and who take the time to do their homework. I think that's proven with this."
Metro on 03/18/2018