Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Pay Raise Suggested For Mayor; Sales Tax Abolished

Does the mayor of Gurdon need a raise? At least one Gurdon resident thinks so.

At the regular meeting of the Gurdon City Council, Monday, Dec. 11, Jimmy Garner asked the council to consider giving the mayor a raise.

Garner suggested the mayor's position pay at least as much as the city recorder/treasurer.

Gurdon Mayor Rick Smith, said such an issue would best be handled when the budget committee meets.

The committee, he said, can go through the numbers, then make a proposal to the council.

A salary survey was done by the Arkansas Municipal League for all city employees in the state. "We could use it to determine if we want to raise the mayor's salary, and how much," Smith said. "I appreciate it, but all raises need to be considered when the budget committee meets. The Gurdon Police Department needs one, too."

A new police car has been ordered, he said, and should be in by the middle of January.

Marshal-elect Don Childres addressed the council saying he looks forward to working with it and will try to get along with everyone.

Tommy Potter, local resident, brought a problem before the panel, saying a neighbor of his has rocks beside the road on city property.

Potter first took the situation to Gurdon Street Superintendent Jim Caldwell, who told him the council should hear about it before anything could be done.

A tree is also needing to be trimmed in the area, he said.

Some of the rocks are in the right of way, Caldwell said. "We've picked them up before and trimmed the tree before."

According to Caldwell, the tree limbs block the railroad stop sign and have to be cut back.

Potter said the old sidewalk is on the opposite side of the tree, and it may be the start of the ROW.

"I'd like to encourage my neighbor to do something. People don't see the rocks when they back up and their cars get hung up," Potter said. "I've tried to work it out with him."

If anything is on the ROW, Smith said, the city can do something about it, but if it's on private property there's nothing the city will be able to do.

The council got to do something fun on the evening  formally abolish a one-half cent sales tax.

In 93, Smith said, the city passed the tax for the street and fire departments. Some $415,000 in bonds were issued, with Gurdon residents paying the tax since.

Originally, the bonds were to be paid off in 2006, but have been retired already.

"This speaks highly of Gurdon," Smith said.

The city's newest firetruck, a dump truck, backhoe and other equipment was purchased with the bond money.

Such measures won't have to be done in the future, Smith said, because the people of Arkansas passed Amendment 1, which allows cities and counties to enter into lease-purchase agreements for a five-year period.

Though the bonds have been retired, Smith said there will be some money left in the account. This is because it will take a little time for the tax to be removed from the books, and area merchants will continue collecting it until told not to.

This money, he said, should be used for the street and fire departments, as this was the reason the tax was passed in the first place.

The council agreed, and passed an ordinance abolishing the tax.

All the news wasn't this pleasant for the council, though. Smith reminded the panel the city has until Dec. 31, to vacate the property being used as a city shop for the street department.

He said the city had looked into leasing other property and the city's attorney wrote a lease agreement with a local property owner.

Under terms of the agreement, the city can set up shop there, and use the property for the street department, recycling and animal control.

Councilman Mickey Jones asked about the term "shop" and wanted it spelled out in the lease exactly what the city could use the land for.

The term "shop" is an old one basically meaning business. The way it is used in the lease means the city could use the land as needed for city business. This includes having the street department, a shelter for animal control and a building for recycling purposes.The sale price of the land is $60,000. The property is owned by Charles Ledbetter, and had been used by his logging operation.

Smith said the two properties looked at appraised for less than the asking price.

The Brown property, behind the post office, appraised for $32,000, but has a price tag of $50,000.

The Ledbetter land appraised for $49,500.

Gurdon will enter into a 12-month lease with Ledbetter on the land. This, Smith said, will give the city time to look for other possible locations or try and come up with financing to purchase the property.

In the interim, the city will be paying $600 a month for the lease.

Discussing the recycling program, Smith said it has been successful, with another load having recently been taken to the Hot Springs Recycling Center.

Caldwell said this was one of the largest ever, weighing 2,980 pounds. It was mostly made up of newsprint, with some cardboard.

The city, Smith said, needs a building where it can set up a baler and bale cardboard to be hauled to the recycling center.

With such a building, the city could take commercial cardboard, and keep it out of the waste stream.

Currently, commercial cardboard is hauled off as garbage and winds up in a Little Rock landfill.

Turning the topic to animal control, Smith said Arkadelphia has given Gurdon a reprieve of sorts.

Initially Arkadelphia had informed Gurdon it would no longer accept animals as of Dec. 31, 2000. This, though, has been changed until the middle of February, 2001, giving the city roughly two months to make other arrangements.

By leasing the Ledbetter property, Smith said, the city can now build an animal shelter. This could be done in about three weeks, depending on weather.

In the meantime, Animal Control Officer Carroll Martin is picking up loose dogs and taking them to the Arkadelphia pound.

Smith presented the council a budget for 2001, telling the members it is this year's budget without any changes.

By law, a budget must be presented to the council in December.

He said when the final numbers for the year are in the budget committee needs to go to work and will have a number of things to consider.

One such item is raises and whether the city can afford them.

He praised everyone for the city's Christmas decorations, saying they were made possible through donations, especially for the 16-foot Santa atop the Shoe Box and the "Season's Greeting" banner across Main Street.

The South Central Electric Cooperative and Entergy helped getting the decorations in place, with South Central working with the decorations and Entergy setting a utility pole.