A coalition of downtown Little Rock neighborhood groups and residents Friday asked a circuit judge to side with them in their bid to block the Arkansas Department of Transportation from using millions of dollars in special funding to build 30 Crossing and seven other construction projects exceeding four lanes.
The attorney for the group, Richard Mays of Little Rock, argues that an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that prohibited the agency from spending money under Amendment 91 to the Arkansas Constitution on 30 Crossing also applies to the other projects even though they weren't at issue in the high court's ruling, handed down almost a year ago.
Further, Mays said the same ruling also applied to proceeds from Amendment 101.
"That decision is controlling law in this case," Mays wrote in a brief supporting his motion seeking a summary judgment in favor of his clients.
The amendments are voter-approved initiatives that contain provisions to levy a .05% statewide sales tax, with the proceeds earmarked for road construction projects.
Amendment 91, approved by voters in 1991, helped support the Transportation Department's $1.8 billion Connecting Arkansas Program. It focused on regionally significant projects around the state, including 30 Crossing.
Amendment 101 was approved by voters in November 2020 and doesn't take effect until 2023, when the tax levied under Amendment 91 is scheduled to expire. The tax levied under Amendment 101 has no expiration date.
When Arkansas' high court said the department was illegally spending Amendment 91 money on 30 Crossing because it exceeds four lanes, agency officials shifted funding to allow 30 Crossing to be completed by spending money generated under Amendment 101.
But Mays said the Supreme Court's holding in the Amendment 91 case also applies to Amendment 101 as well as the other projects that were not part of the lawsuit that led to the decision.
"Amendment 101 modified and amended Amendment 91 only with respect to eliminating the termination date of the one-half cent sales and use tax levied under Amendment 91, having the effect of making that tax permanent," he wrote. "All other provisions and effects of Amendment 91 were unaffected, including the restrictions on the use of the Amendment 91 tax revenues, including the restrictions placed thereon by the Supreme Court's decision ..."
The motion came in a lawsuit filed in November 2020, seeking to halt funding on 30 Crossing and anotherInterstate 30 widening project in Saline County, which also is under construction.
A month later, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce refused to issue an injunction to stop work on the projects.
The coalition filed an amended lawsuit in January to include nearly a dozen other road projects in which the coalition identified at least $780.4 million that it said had been spent on the projects illegally.
The amended complaint asked that the money be repaid to the Arkansas Four-Lane Highway Construction and Improvement Bond Account.
In April, Pierce rejected a bid by the department to have the lawsuit dismissed. Pierce also rejected an agency request to reconsider his decision in September.
The plaintiffs include the Little Rock Downtown Neighborhood Association, the Pettaway Neighborhood Association, the Hanger Hills Neighborhood Association, the Forest Hills Neighborhood Association, the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods and the Arkansas Communities Organization. The individual plaintiffs are Barbara Barrows; Democratic state Rep. Denise Ennett; Rohn Muse; law professor Joshua Silverstein; and community activist Kathy Wells, president of the Little Rock neighborhood coalition.
In addition to the department, the defendants include Gov. Asa Hutchinson, state Auditor Andrea Lea, state Treasurer Dennis Milligan, and the Arkansas Highway Commission and its five members -- Robert Moore Jr. of Arkansas City, Alex Farmer of Jonesboro, Philip Taldo of Springdale, Keith Gibson of Fort Smith and Marie Holder of Little Rock -- as well as Lorie Tudor, the department director.
The 30 Crossing project aims to modernize and widen the 6.7-mile I-30 corridor between interstates 40 and 530. In addition to replacing the bridge over the Arkansas River, the project will expand the corridor from six lanes to as many as 10 in places. Work on the first phase began in September.