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Holland: Benton did not break agreement |
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Monday, 16 June 2008 |
The cities of Benton and Bryant both want to annex land land south of Northlake Road, and officials with both cities contend they have a right to the area.
According to a 2005 agreement signed by the chairmen of both the Benton and Bryant planning commissions, the area was planned for Benton’s city limits, but Bryant officials now claim that Benton changed its planning map the the following year.
Benton officials say that simply isn’t so and are referring the annexation issue to voters in an Aug. 12 special election.
Benton officials have not deviated from the 2005 agreement, Mayor Rick Holland said.
“In 2006, we simply drew a new planning map that mirrored the 2005 agreement,” Holland said today. “We honored that 2005 agreement.
“In 2005, the planning commissions of both cities got together and drew the line that was supposed to be the limits of both cities as they annexed territory,” he said.
“Bryant immediately violated that agreement on a piece of property between Interstate 30 and Highway 5 and we are still involved in a lawsuit over that,” Holland added. “That issue is in [Saline County] Circuit Court. Special Judge John Cole is presiding in that case.”
Holland, referencing a remark made last week by Bryant Alderman Ken Green, said: “Even a simple guy can see that when another city encircles our city limits with their annexed areas, the economy of scale is not there for the development of the infrastructure, and ultimately the taxpayers are the ones who foot the bill for this.”
Green said during a City Council meeting the annexation proposal “is a complicated issue and I think he (Holland), being kind of a simple guy, probably didn’t realize that he had been misinformed by his staff, which is probably what happened. I don’t think he had any ulterior motives in misrepresenting the facts. ... It’s possible that he just didn’t comprehend what they were doing.”
Holland disagreed with Green’s assessment and defended planning and development employees of both cities.
“First off, I’d like to say that employees of both Benton and Bryant are capable, hard-working people,” Holland said.
Marsha Guffey, director of community development for Benton, said the city stands by the 2005 agreement, which “represents what we think are the appropriate boundaries for Benton and Bryant.
“Even after Bryant broke the agreement shortly after it was signed in 2005,” Guffey said, “Benton continued to honor it with the planning area boundaries adopted in 2006 as we began the comprehensive plan process that just recently concluded. All of our actions have been guided by the experts at Metroplan, the metropolitan planning organization that serves all of Central Arkansas. Metroplan serves both Bryant and Benton in good faith.”
Guffey continued, “The area in conflict with both cities’ proposed annexations was given to Bryant so that the land for the middle school would be in the Bryant city limits. In return, the city of Benton was to get the property owned by Paul Bull and the quail farm. Plans for Benton infrastructure since that time have all been predicated on the assumption that this area would be in the Benton city limits.”
She said Bryant “did not revise its planning area boundaries to reflect the North Lake Road area annexation until February 2008. One morning we received an e-mail from [Bryant Planning Coordinator] Lavenia Jones advising us of the new planning area boundaries. She was asked for time for the Benton Planning Commission to consider the boundaries and react, but we received a second e-mail that afternoon advising us, in effect, that they didn’t care, they were filing the map at the county clerk ’s office immediately.
“On the basis of this action, our map was adjusted to meet state law, which says that, ‘If the corporate limits of two or more municipalities of the first or second class are less than ten miles apart, the limits of their respective territorial jurisdictions shall be a line equidistant between them, or as agreed on by the respective municipalities.’ We were not given the opportunity to reach an agreement with Bryant on this area that is clearly very important to the city of Benton.”
Guffey said Benton officials “do not believe planning is a game. We are trying to act in the best interest of the citizens of Benton. We have a large number of residents in Hurricane Lake Estates, Quail Valley and Hurricane Meadows, and we intend to serve their needs effectively and efficiently. When we fill in this area, we will be able to justify building a much-needed fire station in the area. We will be able to loop the water and increase the fire flow.
“Ultimately the issue will be settled by the people who live in this area. State law says that when two cities both approve annexing an area, the voters in the area will determine in which municipality they live.”
Holland said today that it’s important for people to know “what the facts are.”
“We have never tried to mislead anybody,” Holland said.
“Operating on the basis of the May 2005 agreement, plans for infrastructure have been made in order to better serve the Benton residents in this area,” he said. “Of particular importance is a water tower planned to provide fire flow to the residents of Hurricane Lake Estates and Quail Valley.
“It is my understanding that Bryant is planning to put in a forced-main sewer on North Lake Road, which would be more costly for developers to tie onto.
“Benton does have gravity flow sewer in that area that serves the Hurricane Meadows subdivision, which is on the border of the proposed annexed area,” he added.
Holland said the city of Benton still “is willing to honor that 2005 agreement, and I still think that both planning and zoning commissions should sit down and work this out being the mature and professional people that we are.”
He said it appears that “they’re turning this into a Benton-Bryant competition when it should be a cooperative, common-sense process for planning our cities as they run together — to decide what is best for both cities.”
Like Guffey, he predicted that ultimately it will be the the voters who decide what they want in this area.
Bryant plans to put the annexation issue before voters in November and Benton’s election is scheduled in August. When two cities annex an area, a third election is held to allow the people to decide which city they want to be part of, according to state law.
Benton officials attended a meeting in Bryant last week to express their concerns about the issue, but said they received no feedback from Bryant officials. |
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