Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Mayor says Gurdon "doing OK"

"We are doing O.K. despite a few unexpected expenses," said Gurdon Mayor Clayton Franklin during his State of the City Address (Mayor's yearly report) at Monday, January 19 meeting of the Gurdon City Council.

"At the beginning of the year we were hit with two lawsuits. One for Leeper and the other for Plasek. The Leeper case is nearing an end and I can't really comment on the Plasek case because I am one of the defendants, but I think we will have a court date in June," said Franklin.

The mayor reported no action taken on the Smithson Landfill project for the year of 2003.

"The last account I had, they still had not heard anything from International Paper Company. However, I did notice IP cutting some of the trees on the land were the landfill was proposed to go. They were pretty small trees, that concerned me. Who knows," said Franklin.

Nothing else has really been mentioned about the Clark County Water System.

"It isn't a dead system. Arkadelphia is our big hold up there. There is talk about doing it without Arkadelphia, although I doubt they will let them happen," Franklin said.

The city received a loan from the United States Department of Agriculture to purchase a new shop and build the new animal shelter.

"I feel we have two nice facilities Gurdon can be proud of," said Franklin.

One downfall for the year was the Department of Labor discovering how the city had been paying overtime for the past several years.

"I didn't know how it was done exactly. All of that was put into place before I was here. However, it wasn't to bad and we didn't have to pay a fine, but we had to pay in $23,000," said Franklin.

Franklin went on to talk about the city's clean-up efforts. In April the curb side pick-up was in place and citizens took advantage of it.

Also, 10 vacant houses were demolished last year and 10 more are expected to be done this year.

The mayor said the city helped with the 2nd Annual Gurdon Fireworks Display on the Fourth of July.

"A lot of people really enjoy it and it gets bigger and better each year."

The Cabe's, the CD&E Club, the Gurdon Chamber of Commerce, the City of Gurdon, the 21st Century Community Involvement program and individuals help to fund the event.

In July, Gurdon was awarded as an ACE Community for a second time. ACE stands from Arkansas Community of Excellence.

Clark County was awarded the County of Excellence this year also for the first time.

The city recently purchased a track hoe from the county.

"We are always needing one and they approached us about buying it so we did," said Franklin.

"As far as financials go, we are $13,810 in the hole at this time. Our health insurance doubled in the middle of the year. We had no choice to but to pay it.

"We spent close to $15,000 on lawyers due to the lawsuits brought forth on the city.

"Plus the money we had to pay to the Department of Labor.

"However, I think we are going to end solid," said Franklin.