In response to the Benton City Council’s decision to hold a special election on Aug. 12 to annex county property in the area of Northlake Road, the Bryant City Council also passed an ordinance to hold their own special election on Sept. 9.
The council passed the ordinance in a 7-1 vote Monday night at its regular meeting. Councilman Ken Green was not present at the meeting, which automatically gave him a “no” vote.
The two cities have been fighting over the area since Bryant Planning Commission Coordinator LaVenia Jones announced an annexation proposal in May to include the areas of Springhill, Midland, Hilldale, Northlake, Wilkerson and property surrounding the new Saline County Regional Airport. However, on June 5, Benton Mayor Rick Hollland said Bryant was breaking a 2005 agreement regarding the Northlake area,
A May 2005 map supporting Benton’s position bears the signatures of the chairs of both planning commissions that designated land south of Northlake Road for annexation into Benton.
“Benton ... strongly objects to Bryant annexing the unincorporated territory in Sections 7, 8, 17 and 18 of Township 1 South, Range 14 West,” Holland’s letter states, adding that Benton and Bryant city officials should meet “as soon as possible to discuss a resolution to our concerns.”
Holland said the area is under Benton’s territorial jurisdiction, but Bryant officials claim Benton broke that agreement when they designed a new planning map in 2006.
“When I actually started working on this annexation [in March], I was going by the 2005 agreed upon map,” Jones said. “I had Metroplan to pull up the county planning jurisdiction so we could look at where our planning areas are and we noticed that surprisingly, Benton had changed their planning jurisdiction. We were originally working on that 2005 agreed-upon planning area map, but we discovered that the city of Benton adopted a new one two years ago in 2006.”
Jones sent a memo to Bryant city leaders explaining the process she followed after discovering that Benton designed a new planning map in 2006. The memo said Metroplan, a regional planning commission, was asked to redraw a planning map “in accordance with the statutes” and that Jones immediately contacted Marsha Guffey, director of community development for the city of Benton, about the issue.
Despite the letter from Holland, the Bryant Planning Commission voted unanimously at a June 9 public hearing to place the annexation proposal on the Nov. 4 general election ballot. That same day, Benton City Council adopted an ordinance calling for an Aug. 12 special election to decide whether to annex land south of Northlake Road.
Bryant Mayor Larry Mitchell said in order for the city to have the ability to annex the area of Northlake, the council would need to adopt an ordinance for their own special election.
“It’s a timing issue with Benton,” Mitchell said. “They have set up a special election and we have to hold ours within 30 days of theirs.”
Several residents of the Northlake area, which is in question, spoke to the council on Monday with their thoughts. Seven residents showed support to annex into Bryant.
“I live in the annexation area that is being fought over between Benton and Bryant,” Juliann Harvey said in support of annexing into Bryant. “I have called and talked to LaVenia Jones and Marsha Guffey...We’ve compared notes. Basically, all that Guffey could talk about was the developers’ wants, the developers’ needs ... we feel Benton just wants us for this water tower. As far as public utilities are concerned, we are already on First Electric Cooperative and we do not want to be forced on to Benton utilities, which we believe is higher and not as well managed.”
Five residents opposed the annexation at the Monday meeting, but said it was because they prefer to remain county residents.
”We would just prefer to stay a rural community,” Mackie Cruz said, but he doesn’t believe this will be the case. Ultimately, he said, the residents will be forced to choose between annexing into one of the two cities.
Resident Clifford Willham also told the council that he has lived in the Northlake area since 1929. He said only one of the neighbors he has talked to wants to be annexed into Benton.
After a few comments from the citizens, the council approved an ordinance, “submitted to the electors qualified to vote on this issue at a special election to be held on Tuesday, September 9, 2008. The city clerk shall immediately notify the Saline County Election Commission by forwarding a certified copy of this ordinance.”
If both of the two cities’ special election annexation proposals pass, the residents in the Northlake area would have to vote in a third election to decide whether to annex into Benton or Bryant.
Specific details about the areas in the proposed annexation and a master street plan may be found on the Bryant city Web site, www.cityofbryant.org.
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