A circuit judge Thursday ordered the dysfunctional water system in the tiny community of Perla into receivership with Central Arkansas Water and castigated city leaders for "appalling" violations of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
Circuit Judge Stephen Shirron, of the 7th Judicial Circuit, which covers Grant and Hot Spring counties, said Perla Mayor Raymond Adams and other city officials thwarted the intent of the open-records law at every turn.
"It is an abject failure of government for its citizens," Shirron said.
He ordered Perla officials to provide the complainant with the records she had requested. And Shirron said he had no choice but to void an agreement to sell the Perla system to another water utility after finding that a Nov. 24 meeting on the contract violated the state public-records law.
Perla officials had failed to notify the public about that meeting -- a fact that even Perla attorney Jonathan Huber conceded.
A later attempt to re-ratify the agreement on Dec. 2 to correct the open-records-law deficiency was a legal impossibility, the judge said, explaining that the contract had been void since its inception.
As the receiver, Central Arkansas Water had the resources and wherewithal to address the Perla water system's emergency situation that had resulted in raw sewage flowing on the ground, Shirron said.
The lawsuit that prompted Shirron's decision was filed by Perla ratepayer Shelia Gregory, along with her attorney, Chris Burks. It named Perla, the mayor and City Council members.
The suit laid out open-records-law violations related to the provision of records and the absence of public notice for the November meeting. It sought to overturn what it deemed the illegal sale of the system to the Southwest Water Users Public Water Authority, based in Benton.
In June, Gregory submitted to Perla a Freedom of Information Act request that asked for materials, like audit reports, as well as the names of two companies interested in purchasing the system, among other records, according to the amended complaint.
Additionally, Gregory's amended complaint asked that Central Arkansas Water be appointed as receiver. It said the Perla system had been "chronically mismanaged," citing raw sewage left on the ground, as well as the frequency of boil orders.
The system constituted a nuisance, and operators had violated the Arkansas Solid Waste Management Act, the filing said.
Shirron's decision came just days after he temporarily blocked the sale because of Gregory's lawsuit and one week after he ruled in a separate lawsuit between Perla and the neighboring city of Malvern.
Malvern, the county seat of nearly 11,000 residents, sits directly west of Perla and supplies the smaller city with water on a wholesale basis.
Malvern initially sued Perla in 2018 for an unpaid water bill. That debt has since swelled to approximately $350,000, though Malvern has continued to supply water to the community.
Perla has roughly 250 residents, but the municipal water and wastewater system reportedly serves some 800 customers.
Malvern had requested that Central Arkansas Water be appointed as receiver of the Perla system, and the Little Rock-area utility's chief executive officer pledged swift action to aid the troubled system.
Shirron on Dec. 2 denied the motion for receivership. He did, however, grant Malvern's motion for summary judgment, ordering Perla to pay the debt.
Toward the beginning of the hearing Thursday, the judge denied a motion to intervene made by an attorney for Southwest.
Shirron went on to hear testimony from a series of individuals. They included Gregory, Adams, Central Arkansas Water Chief Executive Officer Tad Bohannon and Southwest board president Jason Temple.
After her June Freedom of Information Act request, Gregory testified that Perla officials let her look at some documents but not what she had requested.
According to testimony from Gregory and others Thursday, Perla officials at one point arranged a visit where some documents were spread out on a table in the municipal building, but Gregory and the individuals who accompanied her to the office were unable to make copies.
Gregory testified that she did not get the documents she had requested afterward.
In his comments delivering the ruling, Shirron returned to this encounter, arguing that Gregory was entitled to receive copies and the staff denied her the opportunity to make copies.
Additional testimony centered on the attempted Dec. 2 re-ratification of the contract between Perla and Southwest, namely whether Perla's efforts to inform a Malvern newspaper of the meeting and post notices about the emergency meeting satisfied the requirements of the open-records law.
In his testimony Thursday, Adams, who has been Perla's mayor since 2007, said the city had made up its mind -- it wanted Southwest to take over the system, he said.
He suggested that the dispute over the water system could be attributed to a Black-versus-white phenomenon, and suggested that the complaints were coming from outside the city of Perla. He denied that he was trying to hide documents.
Adams testified that he was trying to deal with his wife's illness at the same time that the developments at issue in the lawsuit were playing out. At one point, he recalled feeling like there had been too much pressure on him and he could not think.
After court adjourned, Central Arkansas Water officials huddled with Adams outside the courtroom.
When asked about his reaction to the ruling during a brief interview, Adams said, "Well, he tore me down, so his decision was his decision, you know?"
Asked about the judge's strong language regarding the city's Freedom of Information Act problems, Adams said "that was his call -- I have no comments on that."
Looking ahead to working with Central Arkansas Water as the receiver, Adams referred to the earlier motion from Malvern that contained the receivership request and suggested it "spooked me away" from the utility.
After talking to the officials Thursday, Adams indicated that there was more of an understanding but said it was still not clear what was going to take place and how they were going to get along.