Attorney a no-show; Gould tables agenda

Gould City Council members Rose Dean, left, and Patricia Stephens, right, prepare for a council meeting Tuesday at Gould City Hall. Standing is Mayor Matthew Smith, and seated at center is Recorder/Treasurer Sheila Smith. 
(Pine Bluff Commercial/Dale Ellis)
Gould City Council members Rose Dean, left, and Patricia Stephens, right, prepare for a council meeting Tuesday at Gould City Hall. Standing is Mayor Matthew Smith, and seated at center is Recorder/Treasurer Sheila Smith. (Pine Bluff Commercial/Dale Ellis)

GOULD -- Business was stymied this week for the Gould City Council after all of the agenda items had to be tabled when City Attorney Clint Todd failed to show up. The meeting had been postponed from a scheduled Sept. 22 virtual meeting via Zoom that was called off due to technical issues related to getting a quorum of the six-member council into the meeting.

Mayor Matthew Smith said later that Todd was attending a Lincoln County Quorum Court meeting that evening that lasted into the late evening hours and was unable to get away. Todd also serves as deputy prosecuting attorney for Lincoln County.

Items that had to be tabled until October included a 1 percentage-point sales tax increase for the city water department and the amendment or enforcement of a truck weight limit ordinance in the city.

"Clint did call me and tell me he was in a Quorum Court meeting and they were kind of having a heated debate," Smith told the council. "If we need him we can always call him."

Smith said he had spoken to the water department supervisor regarding the sales tax for the water department.

"I gave him Clint's cellphone number and his office number and told him to call Clint," he said. "Ask him what's the holdup because he keeps saying he's going to do it and we need to get it on the ballot."

Smith said his preference is to get the issue placed on the ballot for the Nov. 3 general election, although he acknowledged that it may be too late for that. Early voting in the general election begins Oct. 19.

"If we have to have a special election, well, that's going to cost about five grand," he said. "Remember when we did the 2% sales tax back in 2016? It cost the city about $4,600 so I'd like to get it on so we don't have to have a special election."

Damage to Star Street in Gould from trucks going in and out of Taylor Gin had the council discussing ways to enforce a 10,000-pound weight limit that was set in a 2004 ordinance. Council Member Ermer Preston, who lives about one block from the cotton gin, said heavy trucks were responsible for considerable street damage. She said former Mayors Lloyd Parks and Earnest Nash had both tried and failed to enforce the weight limit.

"They both put up signs but the people at the gin were saying it wasn't legal," Preston said. "You know, the weight limits they have, out on the highway they have signs that have weight by axles and that's what Clint is supposed to be checking on with that ordinance."

Smith handed out a copy of the ordinance passed on Feb. 12, 2004, requiring a permit for truck traffic exceeding 5 tons on Star Street, which is the primary access route into the cotton gin.

"First off," Preston said, "we need to know what those bales of cotton weigh and we need to know how much those trucks weigh empty."

"Well, I'll tell you, I've got a [commercial drivers license]," Smith said. "The truck itself weighs 30 grand, 35,000, and no less than 28,000."

Preston said officials at Taylor Gin had raised questions regarding the legality of the ordinance because the language was too vague. Although the ordinance does require a permit and prescribes a fine for violators, it does not address the cost of a permit and the language regarding fines is ambiguous.

"I told the lawyer to read it good because we can't go back and do what we did before," she said.

Smith said he has been trying to get a copy of a Star City weight limit ordinance to use for comparison to Gould's ordinance.

"Star City has a problem with the log trucks coming through," he said. "I told Clint today that I need a copy of that so that we can get them to start paying for tearing up the road because the other problem is that Star Street doesn't just start at the highway, it goes all the way to [Arkansas] 114. What are we going to do about the combines and the big trucks? They've been doing this stuff for years."

"I'm going to put it like this," Preston said. "They tore the street up and didn't fix anything except over there where they stay, so the street has holes in it, holes in it, holes in it, and it's worn the street down to where it's holding water right there in our driveway."

She complained that as soon as the streets used by the trucks are repaired, the trucks come through and tear them up again.

"They didn't even try to do anything about it," Preston said. "If they cared about it, if they lived here, they wouldn't do that, they'd come in on 114 and go right back out on it."

Smith updated the council on a pending lawsuit against him and the city filed in Lincoln County Circuit Court by former Gould Police Chief Efrem Elliott, alleging wrongful termination. Smith terminated Elliott, who had been police chief since 2016, the day he took office as mayor Jan. 1, 2019. The following day, the council reinstated Elliott, but one week later, at a special meeting, Smith vetoed the reinstatement.

Elliott's lawsuit alleges that he was wrongfully terminated and is seeking unspecified damages for mental and emotional anguish and lost wages.

Smith distributed a letter from North Little Rock attorney Jenna Adams, who is representing Smith in the lawsuit, informing him that the process of discovery in the case is underway and that no date had been set for trial.

Smith said later he expects a date to be set sometime in early 2021.

The mayor updated the council on pending CARES Act funding to reimburse the city for up to $33,000 in covid-19-related expenses, and he distributed a draft of the Arkansas Rural Connect Broadband Grant Program.

"I'm hoping that it's free," he said, "mainly for the children because most of them don't have Wi-Fi."

He said he would have more information on the grant program at the next council meeting.

Smith reported that the city had almost $48,000 in its General Fund balance.

"We've got taxes and payroll that have to come out of that and by the 3rd, we've got about another $15,000 that will go back in," he said.

Smith said the city is expecting an IRS refund of $2,200 for an overpayment of quarterly taxes remitted in March 2020.

"I wonder if [the media] got that," Council Member Rose Dean said with a laugh. "We overpaid our taxes because that's just the kind of people we are."

The sales tax, weight ordinance, as well as a mask ordinance and street annexation were tabled until the next council meeting scheduled for Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. at Gould City Hall.

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